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Venerable Leonard Lessius, S.J. 



THE 

NAMES OF GOD 



AND 



MEDITATIVE SUMMARIES OF THE 
DIVINE PERFECTIONS 



The Venerable Leonarl/Lessius, s.j. 



TRANSLATED BY 

T. J. CAMPBELL, S.J. 



NEW YORK 

The America Press 

19L2 



£7100 



COPYRIGHT 1912 
BY 

The America Press 



<gCI.A330633 



^73 



3mprtmt potrat 

Anthony J. Maas, s.j. 
Provincial Maryland-New York Province 



Ntf?U ©batat 

Remegius Lafort 
, Censor 



imprimatur 

fl&JoHN Cardinal Farley 

Archbishop of New York 



New York, December 6, 1012. 



THE MEANY PRINTING CO., NEW YORK. 



AUTHOR'S PREFACE 

IF we had remained in the state of innocence, 
* meditation on divine things would have been 
easy. It would have been a constant delight to 
walk in the presence of God and to excite in the 
heart acts of faith, hope, charity, thanksgiving, 
humility, reverence, obedience and the like. In 
that happy state man enjoyed a very special as*- 
sistance, which enabled him to know his Creator 
and to fulfil with the greatest joy all the duties 
that the various virtues enjoined. But when that 
blissful condition ceased in consequence of sin, 
this help was withdrawn, and our natural weak- 
ness made the contemplation of divine things irk- 
some and the practice of virtue difficult. Earthly 
and material things now appeal to us powerfully 
and we readily give days to discuss and examine 
them. The wars and battles of history or fiction 
fascinate us, but we have to force ourselves to 
contemplate the things of heaven. The perfec- 
tions or attributes of God are particularly diffi- 
cult, and yet there is nothing more helpful to sal- 
vation, nor more agreeable and consoling when 
once we have made a little progress; none are 
more efficacious for the acquisition of virtue nor 
better calculated to clarifv the mind and to throw 



vi Author's Preface 

light on all the duties of life. For the Holy Scrip- 
ture says : "To know Thee is perfect justice and 
to know Thy justice and Thy power is the root 
of immortality. (Wis. xv.) 

Hence following the example of St. Denis the 
Areopagite whose works have for fifty years ex- 
ercised on me a most marvellous charm, I have 
resolved to explain very briefly the divine perfec- 
tions or attributes ascribed to God by the Holy 
Books. In this short exposition I omitted de- 
signedly the testimony of the Scriptures and the 
Fathers and also all theological proofs in order 
that the reader may more readily form a clear 
idea of these divine attributes, excite in his heart 
affections worthy of such sublime considerations 
and by this exercise, as St. Denis says, make his 
soul "deiform," or like unto God. 



TRANSLATOR'S PREFACE 

A LTHOUGH three hundred years have 
** elapsed since the illustrious Leonard Les- 
sius, S.J. wrote his treatise on "The Names of 
God," and in a series of "Meditative Summaries" 
condensed his great work on "The Divine Per- 
fections," no English translation of either work 
has yet appeared. Some early versions in French 
and Flemish were published as far back as the 
seventeenth century, and Father Bouix, S.J., gave 
us his translation in French in 1882, but it is 
only now in 1912, that an effort is made to put. 
this splendid spiritual book in the hands of Eng- 
lish readers. 

"The Names of God" — there are fifty in all — 
is the last work that Lessius ever wrote. Five 
or six days after he laid aside his manuscript the 
Angel of Death wrote finis on the story of the 
great man's life. The concluding chapter was 
fittingly entitled "God our Last End," and its 
closing paragraph reads as if he were gazing 
into the face of the Lord and expecting to be 
called to heaven. "During all eternity" he tells 
us, "all the angels and all the blessed will so 
rest in the vision, the love and the beatific vision 
of God that they will desire nothing more, but 

vii 



viii Translators Preface 

will find in Him the term of all their desires and 
enjoy in Him a blessed repose." 

This part of the book is made up of fifty chap- 
ters, most of them very brief, but all of them re- 
plete with the sublimest theology and furnishing 
a superabundance of matter for devout considera- 
tion. 

"The Meditative Summaries" which constitute 
the second half of the work are the concluding 
chapters of his fifteen famous treatises on "The 
Divine Perfections." He calls them "Recollec- 
tiones Precatorice." Father Bouix who was evi- 
dently thinking of Bossuet and possibly making 
a mental comparison between the two men en- 
titles them "Elevations et Prieres' which is rather 
a free translation. "Meditative Summaries" we 
think more accurately describes their character, 
for they are like the Colloquies which St. Ignatius 
recommends us to make at the end of our medi- 
tations. They are in reality a succinct resume 
of all the theology that had been elaborated and 
discussed in the previous disquisitions, combined 
with fervid outpourings of the heart in prayer, 
adoration and love. He seems to forget the pres- 
ence of his students and addresses himself directly 
to Almighty God. Happy students to have had a 
teacher with the mind of a seer and the heart of 
a seraph. 



Translator's Preface ix 

On account of the sublime doctrines which he 
is expounding, the terminology is at times un- 
avoidably technical. But this is true only of the 
opening chapters. Ordinarily his language is 
extremely simple and he never hesitates to repeat 
his expressions in order to make his meaning 
clear. Moreover what at first seems hard to 
understand clarifies itself as he proceeds and even 
where we are unable to follow him we cannot fail 
to contemplate with amazement the flight of his 
marvellously illumined intellect into the divine 
mysteries. 

The few explanatory notes taken from the 
standard treatises of philosophy and theology and 
appended by the translator may contribute some- 
what to a better understanding of the terms em- 
ployed, but the main body of the work is within 
the reach of ordinary readers especially those 
who live in the light of the Sacraments. 

The literary tone of the "Summaries" cannot 
fail to please. They are written in what rhet- 
oricians call the cumulative style, which consists 
in piling up new thoughts and new aspects of 
things, each following closely on the other, and 
all hurrying onward to a sublime and splendid 
climax. It is like listening to the utterances of 
an inspired orator. 

Lessius was one of the most illustrious the- 



x Translator's Preface 

ologians of the Society of Jesus, the glory of the 
University of Louvain and the especial pride of 
Catholic Belgium. He was born at Brecht near 
Antwerp in 1554; at the time when the Protestant 
Reformation was in full blast; when Charles V 
reigned in Spain, Henry II in France and Mary 
Tudor in England. He was 12 years old when 
Philip II sent the Duke of Alva to the Nether- 
lands. 

He was only 17 when he entered the University 
of Louvain but his unusual ability won for him al- 
most immediately both from masters and 
students the title of "Prince of Philosophers." 
Shortly after beginning his studies in the Uni- 
versity, he entered the Society of Jesus which was 
then in the 37th year of its existence. 

At 20 he was teaching philosophy at Douai 
and continued at that work for seven consecu- 
tive years. But philosophy alone was not suffi- 
cient to absorb his powers. He became a pro- 
found Hellenist and it is asserted by a grave his- 
torian that in two months time he mastered Greek 
so as to be able to converse in it. He was even 
then familiar with all the great thelogians, the 
Fathers of the Church and the notable writers on 
Holy Scripture. He was an authority in the ori- 
ental languages, canon and civil law, history and 
mathematics, and conversant with medicine, be- 



Translators Preface xi 

sides speaking with facility several modern 
languages. All this was before he had reached 
his 27th year; so that there is small wonder he 
was an invalid for the rest of his life; but illness 
never made him work less. 

When he was ordained he was sent to Rome 
where Suarez taught him for two years. It was 
this great master who emancipated him from an 
excessive anxiety about theological and philo- 
sophical authority. "In every question," he was 
told, "in which faith and morals are not involved, 
you are to follow your own opinion provided you 
can show that it is founded on reason. Such an 
utterance from an oracle like Suarez dissipated 
his fears and after that, says his biographer "the 
eagle took its flight." 

From Rome he was recalled to Belgium to 
teach dogmatic theology at Louvain, and for 
thirty-eight years he was not only the pride of 
that University but one of the most brilliant 
theologians of his age. He was esteemed and 
praised by several great popes, and in 1587 when 
certain doctors of Louvain, probably prompted by 
Baius, took exception to some of his propositions, 
Sixtus V undertook his defense and sent a Nuncio 
to Belgium invested with the power of a legate a 
latere to declare in the name of the Pope that the 
propositions were absolutely in conformity with 



xii Translator's Preface 

sound doctrine. Such a pronouncement made the 
reputation of Lessius world-wide and the Uni- 
versities of Mayence, Treves, Ingolstadt and Lou- 
vain hastened to declare in his favor. He was 
consulted by theologians from all parts of the 
world, and his word was law for them. Paul V 
thanked him publicly in Rome for his labors for 
the Church, and years afterwards when Lessius 
had gone to his reward Urban VIII said of him : 
"I knew Leonard Lessius perfectly. I was inti- 
mately associated with him in Rome and I have 
always held him in the highest regard on account 
of his extraordinary learning. But I esteemed 
him incomparably more for his virtue. He was 
a most humble man and endowed with unusual 
piety. I regard him as holding a high place in 
heaven. " 

When he was sent as Delegate to the 6th and 
7th General Congregations of his Order, he was 
consulted by the learned men of every city 
through which he passed. He was called "The 
Oracle of the Low Countries." Prince Albert 
who then governed Belgium took him as his ad- 
viser, and in the Council Chamber had always 
before him on the table the treatise of Lessius De 
Jure et Justitia, Justus Lipsius the great literary 
man of the period died in his arms. Lipsius had 
left the faith but his friend won him back again 
to God. 



Translator s Preface xiii 

The list of his works is enormous. The an- 
notated catalogue of them fills several pages of 
the great folio edition of the Bibliotheca Scrip- 
torum SJ. Among the translations of some parts 
of his works we find two by the famous Father 
Schall in Chinese and one in English by a timo- 
rous Briton who had undertaken the task at the 
command of Sir Walter Raleigh's ghost. The 
ghost declared that such a work would serve to 
check the growth of unbelief in England and 
would also exculpate the famous knight himself 
from the charge of infidelity. 

His most important treatises are: 1. Justice 
and Right; 2. Faith; 3. The Providence of God; 
4. Immortality of the Soul; 5. Efficacious Grace, 
the Divine Decrees, Free Will, Conditional Fore- 
knowledge of God; 6. The Predestination and the 
Reprobation of Angels and Men — the Predes- 
tination of Christ; 7. The Sovereign Good; 8. 
The Divine Perfections; 9. The Power of the 
Roman Pontiff; 10. What Faith and Religion 
should be embraced; (This treatise St. Francis 
of Sales said was rather the work of the Angel 
of the Great Council than of Lessius. It brought 
back Prince John of Nassau and many other dis- 
tinguished personages to the Church.) 11. Ab- 
stinence; 12. The Choice of a State of Life, and 
Celibacy; 13. The Names of God. 



xiv Translator's Preface 

In the Imago Primi Sceculi Societatis Jesu, 
Lessius is described as follows: "His soul, 
greater than the world, was always turned to- 
wards God, so that on earth he seemed to lead the 
life of heaven. Taking but little nourishment 
and that only once a day, he was nevertheless 
constantly occupied in reading and writing on 
divine things. His countenance was re- 
splendent with the light of sanctity." 

He was particularly remarkable for his Chris- 
tian patience. Though afflicted with bodily in- 
firmities from his earliest youth, and suffering 
particularly in the four last years of his life, he 
never prayed for any alleviation of his pain. On 
the contrary he was continually thanking God 
for giving him a share of the cross. His only 
remedy was abstinence, and in that respect he 
was a source of astonishment to those who lived 
with him. His unusual intellectual powers 
which always seemed to be flooded with light en- 
abled him to surmount his bodily suffering. In- 
deed it was while he was undergoing what 
amounted almost to martyrdom that he wrote his 
masterpieces. His friends regarded it as mir- 
aculous. 

His writings reveal his soul, especially those 
on the Sovereign Good and the Divine Names. 
With St. Denis and St. Augustine he rises to the 



Translator's Preface xv 

contemplation of the Divinity and speaks of God 
as if his heart were on lire. 

He died at Louvain January 15, 1623 at the 
age of sixty-nine. In Belgium and elsewhere he 
was regarded as a saint. He was buried before 
the main altar of the church of the Society in 
the Rue de Namur next to the college where he 
had labored for thirty-nine years. St. Michel, 
as it is called, is no longer a Jesuit church al- 
though it still bears on its fagade and in the in- 
terior the emblems and statues of the saints of 
the Society. The present Jesuit establishment 
is in what used to be a somewhat mean street 
called the Rue des Recollets. Near the Scholasti- 
cate however in somewhat neighborly fashion is 
a dormitory erected by the University and named 
after the distinguished friend of Lessius, Justus 
Lipsius. Between the two buildings and in strik- 
ing contrast, historically and otherwise, is the 
Tower of Jansenius where the Augustinus is 
said to have been written. Thirty-five years ago 
if memory serves us right there was a tradition 
in the Scholasticate, that the chair in the pulpit 
of the Professor of Dogma was the identical one 
used by Lessius in his time. Of course one may 
be skeptical on that score, for such a fragile ar- 
ticle of furniture could scarcely have survived 
the storms through which the Society has passed 



xvi Translator's Preface 

during the long period that intervened between 
then and now. Some years ago, the bones of the 
great man were carried over from the Rue de 
Namur to the Rue des Recollets and deposited 
in a marble tomb near the altar where the heart 
of St. John Berchmans is enshrined. Of that 
relic at least, there can be no doubt. 

Immediately after his death, an ecclesiastical 
tribunal was instituted for an official inquiry into 
his life and virtues, with view to his canoniza- 
tion. The testimony taken at the time was de- 
posited in the archives of the Archbishopric of 
Malines, but for a long time the process was in- 
terrupted on account of political upheaval, and 
only in our times has it been resumed. 

It is superfluous to say that the works of such 
a man must be of great value not only to priests 
and religious, but also to people of the world who 
are desirous of knowing more than the mere 
rudiments of their religion. They ought also to 
be especially serviceable both for the Directors 
of retreats and for those who follow the Exer- 
cises. Indeed there is every reason why "The 
Meditative Summaries" on account of their de- 
votional character might be used very profitably 
for visits to the Blessed Sacrament or even while 
assisting at Holy Mass. 

We have used the Latin text as well as the 



Translator's Preface xvii 

French translation of Bouix in preparing this 
English version. There was thus less danger of 
making the great man say what he never in- 
tended. The conciseness of his style contributed 
not a little to the difficulty of the task but we 
trust we have succeeded in making the transla- 
tion coincide strictly with the meaning of the 
author. We commend the book in its new dress 
to the benignity of the reader. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

Preface v 



CHAPTER. 



I — God and the Divinity 1 

II— He Who Is 7 

III— The Infinite God 8 

IV — The God of Immensity 11 

V— The Most Pure God 14 

VI— The Eternal God 18 

VII— The Most High God 25 

VIII— The Immutable God 27 

IX — The Immortal God 29 

X— The Invisible God. 32 

XI — The Incomprehensible God 34 

XII— The Ineffable God 37 

XIII— The Almighty God 39 

XIV— The Most Wise God 42 

XV— The Most Beautiful God 44 

XVI— The Good God 47 

XVII— The Holy God 49 

XVIII— The Merciful God 51 

XIX— The Just God 53 

XX— The Benign God 55 

XXI— The Patient God 58 

XXII— The God of Clemency 61 

XXIII— The God of Sweetness G3 

XXIV— The True God 65 

xix 



xx Contents 

XXV— The Blessed God 69 

XXVI— God the First Beginning of All Things. 72 

XXVII— God the Creator 76 

XXVIII— God the Conservator 79 

XXIX— Divine Providence 81 

XXX— God the Ruler of the World 84 

XXXI— The Divine Master. 86 

XXXII— God the Redeemer 91 

XXXIII— The Light of the World 93 

XXXIV— God the Sanctifier 96 

XXXV— God Our Refuge 98 

XXXVI— God the Tender Father 100 

XXXVII— God Our Protector . 102 

XXXVIII— God Our Helper 106 

XXXIX— God Our Strength 108 

XL— God Our Support 109 

XLI— God Our Life 110 

XLII— God Our Hope 113 

XLIII— God Our Salvation \ . . . 114 

XLIV— God Our Glory 115 

XL V— God Our Peace 116 

XLVI— God Our Father 118 

XLVII— The Jealous God 121 

XLVIII — God the Judge of the Living and the 

Dead 123 

XLIX— God the Father of the World to Come. 127 

L— God the Last End 129 



Contents xxi 

Meditative Summaries. 

chapter. 

I— The Infinity of God 144 

II — The Immensity of God 146 

III— The Immutability of God 150 

IV— The Eternity of God 154 

V — The Omnipotence of God 159 

VI— The Wisdom of God 162 

VII— The Goodness of God 168 

VIII— The Sanctity of God 173 

IX— The Benignity of God 180 

X — The Dominion of God 187 

XI— The Providence of God 193 

XII— The Mercy of God 205 

XIII— The Justice of God 216 

XIV— God Our Last End 224 



THE NAMES OF GOD 



THE NAMES OF GOD 

CHAPTER I. 
God and the Divinity. 

Dionys. C I. de Div. Nom. ; 
De Myst. theol. C 3. 

C T. DENIS tells us we can form an idea of God 
in two ways: affirmatively and negatively. 
The first is by positive concepts or by ascribing 
every possible perfection to God; the second by 
negative concepts, or by denying that any perfec- 
tion conceivable by a created mind unillumined 
by the light of glory can be properly predicated 
of Him. 

If we follow the first method we say, for in- 
stance that He is a spirit, most sovereignly 
exalted, good, great, eternal, powerful, wise, 
sweet, holy, just, merciful, beautiful; intimately 
present in all creatures, creating them, forming 
them, conserving them, governing them, and or- 
daining them to His glory, which is the first be- 
ginning and last end of all created things. 

St. Augustine in his Confessions Bk. 1, c. 4, has 
given us such a description while adding some- 

1 



2 The Names of God 

thing that partakes to a certain degree of the 
second method. "God is a spirit," he says, "sov- 
ereign and sovereignly good, great, and sempi- 
ternal; most powerful and most benign, most 
merciful and most just, most hidden and omni- 
present, most strong and most beautiful, most 
simple and most perfect, indivisible and im- 
measurable, stable and incomprehensible ; change- 
less, yet changing all things; always in action, 
yet ever in repose, amassing yet lacking naught ; 
creating, nourishing, perfecting, upholding, 
completing and protecting all things; the Being 
from whom are all things; by whom are all 
things,, and for whom are all things." 

St. Bernard in his book De Consider atione ad- 
dressed to Pope Eugenius, asks : "What is God?" 
"God," he answers, "is an all powerful will, a 
sweet force, eternal light, immutable reason, 
sovereign beatitude; creating the soul to make it 
participate in Himself; vivifying it, to make it 
feel its Creator; in touch with it to make it long 
to come to Him; dilating it to make it receive 
Him ; justifying it to enable it to merit ; inflaming 
it to set it on fire with zeal ; fecundating it to make 
it fruitful; leading it to justice; forming it to 
benevolence; moulding it to wisdom; visiting it 
to console it; illuminating it to increase its vision; 
guarding it for immortality ; filling it to overflow- 



God and the Divinity 3 

ing with felicity, encompassing it for salvation." 
Here as elsewhere, St. Bernard describes God by 
attributing to Him all perfections. He follows 
the affirmative method. 

An example of the negative method would be 
to say that God is a spirit, infinite, immense, 
sempiternal, infinitely above all perfection, all ex- 
cellence and all greatness conceivable by a 
created mind. He is above all substance, all 
power, all wisdom, all intelligence, all light, all 
beauty, all sanctity, all justice, all goodness, all 
beatitude, all glory, so that nothing of these 
things can be properly predicated of Him. He 
is like none of them, but is infinitely more sublime 
and excellent than them all. 

The reason of this is that all perfections 
conceivable by us or by the angels unaided by 
the light of glory are limited. Moreover they 
are not included in each other; and besides all 
perfections conceived by a created intelligence 
are conceived as accidental forms, such as are in 
created beings; whereas in God they are a most 
simple substance or a self-subsisting form. 1 



1 All Being is divided into substance and accident. Sub- 
stance is that which exists per se; that is, which exists or sub- 
sists in itself; whereas an accident is that which inheres in an- 
other as in its subject. The primary element in the notion of 
substance is subsistence. Hence substance may be defined as a 
subsisting something that abides the same amid change of its 



4 The Names of God 

In many of his writings St. Denis seems to pre- 
fer the negative to the affirmative method. In- 
stances of it may be found in Chapter II of The 
Celestial Hierarchy, Chapter I and II of The 
Names of God, and in Chapter III of Mystic 
Theology. 

The two however, may be combined, as in the 
following description of the Divinity : "God is in- 
comprehensible goodness in His essence, inscru- 
table depth in His wisdom, inaccessible height in 
His elevation; ineffable breadth in His love; in- 
finite length in His eternity; superlative purity in 
His holiness; absolute immensity in His great- 
ness, an obscurity most luminous, a solitude most 
peopled, and a simplicity most perfect. For Him- 
self and for all the blessed He is paradise, heaven, 
eternal rest, eternal beatitude, and the infinite 
plenitude of all that is good." 

Although in fact, as well as in the concept of 
those who have the vision of God, there is, in no 



accidents. There are spiritual as well as material substances. 
The soul is a spiritual substance ; angels are spiritual substances ; 
and it is part of our faith that the Second Person of the Blessed 
Trinity is of the same substance with the Father. 

Substance, essence and nature severally denote the same ob- 
ject, but connote more especially different features. Substance 
points to the general fact of existence per se; essence to the 
reality of which the being is constituted; nature signifies the 
essence as a principle of vitality. 

Stonyhurst Series Psychol. 



God and the Divinity 5 

way, any distinction between the Divinity and 
God, yet in our concept or in our manner of con- 
ceiving things, there is a distinction to be 
made. For we conceive the Divinity as the form, 
and God as the being resulting from form and 
substance. 

We may conceive the Divinity in two ways: 
First as an infinite intellectual Essence or Nature 
from which flow in some way all those per- 
fections which are called attributes. These attri- 
butes, however, are conceived not as formally 
contained in the Divinity or in the Divine Es- 
sence, but as being in the Divinity or Divine 
Essence as in their foundation. We conceive 
them as we do properties in created things. 

Secondly, we may conceive the Divinity as a 
most simple self-subsisting form of infinite per- 
fection, and containing formally all perfections 
in their highest degree, in such a way that God, 
by that form is formally powerful, wise, good, 
holy, just, etc. ; nay is formally power itself, wis- 
dom itself, goodness itself, holiness itself, justice 
itself ; not accidental but substantial and self-sub- 
sistent. This manner of conceiving God is more 
elevated, more noble and more worthy of God as 
we have explained at length in Book 1, De Per- 
fect, divinis, c. 1 and 3. 

Reason and the testimony of the Holy Fathers 



6 The Names of God 

also show this; for conceived in this manner the 
Divine Essence contains formally all simple per- 
fections, and is not considered merely as the basis 
or foundation of them. Moreover the perfections 
themselves are presented to us as substantial and 
not as accidental, or accessory things. 1 



1 Nowadays the word form usually signifies shape or figure, 
or something superficial as when we speak of formal observances, 
formalities, etc. In scholastic philosophy it signifies the active 
factor which determines the essential nature of each being. 
There are substantial forms and accidental forms. Substantial 
forms are the essential constituents of a thing. Accidental forms 
are mere accidental modes or determinations which conceivably 
might be removed without affecting the nature of the substance, 
e. g., heat, color, etc. 

When we say that God. is formally, good, just, wise, etc., we 
mean that He is essentially so. When we say that He is formal 
justice, formal goodness, etc., we mean that He is justice itself, 
goodness itself, etc. — Stonyhurst Series. Psychol. 



CHAPTER II. ' 
He Who Is. 

Dionys. de Div. Nom., 5; 
St. Thos. I p. q. 13. 

r^ OD is called Being, He Who Is, Self -Exist- 
^* ent, in five ways or for five reasons. 

First. Because He is the source and cause of 
all being; for all being comes from Him and de- 
pends on Him continually, as the light depends 
on the sun. 

Second. Because His being is not limited. 
He is not this or that being, as an angel or a man 
is, but He Is universally. He comprises in Him- 
self and anticipates every kind of being, from all 
eternity; for the whole plentitude, the whole lati- 
tude, and the whole amplitude of being is most 
fully and eminently contained in Him. 

Third. Because He Is eternally, and because 
by His Being and by His life, He fills, equals, 
comprises and includes in Himself all eternity. 

Fourth. Because He Is limitlessly, and fills 
the entire immensity of all imaginable space. 

Fifth. Because He Is immutably, possessing 
everything simultaneously and securely in a way 
that He can never lose anything ; for He possesses 
all things by His immutable Essence to which 
nothing can be added, and from which nothing 
can be withdrawn. 

7 



CHAPTER III. 
The Infinite God. 

Ps. cxliv., 3; Dionys. c. 9; 
St. Thos., 1 p. q. 7. 

/** OD is infinite in His essence, not only in some 
^* kind of perfection, as power, wisdom, holi- 
ness, justice, mercy, etc., but He is absolutely in- 
finite in all kinds of perfection and consequently 
in the whole range of being. 

First. As the fruitful Cause in which the 
whole amplitude of being eminently exists and 
which includes the infinite species of every genus ; 
the infinite individuals of every species, and con- 
sequently whatever in the nature of being is con- 
ceivable by the intelligence of the angels and even 
by that of God. 

That is why St. Gregory, of Nazianzen, in his 
Oratio in Natalia calls God the immense ocean of 
being. In it there are infinite worlds, infinite 
species of angels, one excelling the other, on and 
on through infinity ; infinite nations of peoples, in- 
finite species of animals, infinite natures and vari- 
eties of plants, of minerals and precious stones. 
There is an infinity of gold and silver ; there are 
8 



The Infinite God 9 

infinite pearls of rarest size, and every description 
of precious stones. There are infinite species 
of colors, of paintings, of harmonies, of odors, of 
savors and delectable objects, of the flesh and the 
senses; infinite regions and cities, and fields and 
forests, and groves and gardens; infinite 
fountains and hills; infinite rivers and seas, in- 
finite palaces and temples, infinite furnishings of 
every kind and of inestimable price. In it finally 
are contained an infinite abundance of all that 
the mind can conceive of precious and beautiful 
and splendid and delectable. All these things and 
an infinity of others that no created intellect can 
grasp, exist in the essence, wisdom, and omnipo- 
tence of God, and shine before His mind in such 
a manner that He can with a single sign of His 
will produce them outside of Himself in all con- 
ceivable multitudes and splendors. 

Hence it follows that whoever possesses God 
possesses at the same time all those things and 
enjoys them in God in a most exalted manner. 

Second. God is called absolutely infinite, be- 
cause alone, by Himself He is infinitely more 
excellent, more grand, more beautiful, more lov- 
able than all those infinite things which are 
contained eminently in His essence, His wisdom, 
His power. And even if God were to make 
them pass from nothing into being, He would 



10 The Names of God 

still be infinitely above them all. Nay all those 
things taken collectively and considered together, 
are but as nothing in comparison with the divine 
excellence. Hence he who possesses God, and 
rejoices in Him, enjoys by that possession alone a 
happiness incomparably greater than he would 
possess if outside of God he owned all that there 
is of beauty, splendor, glory and happiness. For 
God is all those things and infinitely more than 
all those things. 

Third. From the fact that God is infinite in 
His Essence, it follows that He Himself is neces- 
sarily infinite in every kind of perfection that 
belongs to Him, namely, in greatness, power, 
wisdom, holiness, benignity, mercy, justice, 
beauty, etc. The reason is because such perfec- 
tions can correspond to the Divine Essence only 
in an infinite perfection and degree; for they must 
be proportionate and equal to His Essence, from 
which, according to our manner of conceiving, 
they seem to flow. Secondly because these per- 
fections are in God by a single and most simple 
form, which is absolutely infinite and unlimited. 
For they are not real properties proceeding from 
the Essence, but are the Divine self-subsisting 
Essence Itself, and consequently are a simple 
form of the Divinity which can be comprehended 
by us only imperfectly. 



CHAPTER IV. 
The God of Immensity. 

Ps. cxliv; Barnch iii ; Dionys. 9; 
St. Thos. i p. q. 8. 

HP HIS name is given to the Almighty because of 
* His greatness and for the want of a better 
word what we call His extension. He is extended 
and so to say, diffused everywhere ; above, below, 
on the right, on the left, before and back of us. He 
is circumscribed by no limit and by no space. The 
mind contemplating this is lost in amazement. 
Were we to imagine an extent beyond the uni- 
verse of a thousand leagues in every direction, 
God would still be there. Were we to add a mil- 
lion more, God would still be beyond them. Im- 
agine it to extend as many millions of leagues as 
there are grains of sand on the shores of the sea, 
as drops of water in the ocean, or as there would 
be grains of dust to fill the whole universe, God is 
still by infinite millions of leagues beyond them 
all, and that most completely and perfectly, 
namely in the Three Persons, with all the perfec- 
tions and the gifts and the riches which are 
eminently contained in Him. 

11 



12 The Names of God 

Finally no human mind can conceive so vast an 
extent that God is not infinitely greater than it; 
and infinitely diffused without and beyond it ; not 
merely in parts as the air and other material sub- 
stances, but complete by Himself and if I may so 
speak in His totalities, as a spirit, so that He is 
entire in every point of all space ; not, as it were, 
floating or mobile but most firmly and immovably 
and as the foundation of all things. 

All the vastness of the universe compared to the 
magnitude and extension of God is like a little 
drop of water in comparison with the immensity 
of the ocean, or as a grain of dust in comparison 
with the vastness of the whole universe. Thus the 
Book of Wisdom (xi, 23) tells us: "The whole 
world before Thee is the least grain in the bal- 
ance, and as a drop of the morning dew that fall- 
eth upon the earth." Or to speak more correctly 
there is no proportion between the magnitude and 
the extension of God and the magnitude and ex- 
tension of the universe, for the magnitude of the 
extension of God not only infinitely exceeds the 
magnitude of the universe, but all magnitude con- 
ceivable by a created intelligence. 

Nor does it matter that corporal and spiritual 
magnitudes admit of no comparison, for even if 
they cannot be compared in their nature they can 
be compared by reason of their extension as the- 



The God of Immensity 13 

ologians and philosophers generally admit when 
there is question of the soul and body, and of 
Angels, and the places adequate to them. 

By reason of His immensity God is often called 
great in the Holy Scripture : "Of His greatness 
there is no end." (Ps. xlvii, lxxvi, lxxxviii). 
But this name belongs to Him also by reason of 
His other attributes, for He is great in power, 
great in wisdom, great in holiness, great in 
majesty and great in all His perfections. Also 
when in the Holy Scriptures He is called abso- 
lutely great, we must understand that He is great, 
infinite, immense according to all the perfections 
which belong to Him as we read in the xlvii 
Psalm which says: "Great is the Lord and ex- 
ceedingly to be praised in the city of our God, in 
His holy mountains" ; that is to say, He is great 
in power, in wisdom, in holiness, in justice and 
mercy. And in the xciv Psalm we are told to 
"praise the Lord, for the Lord is a great God 
and a great King above all gods." In the same 
way to be infinite, immense, eternal, unchange- 
able, immortal, incomprehensible, are things that 
belong to Him not merely by reason of His es- 
sence, but also according to all His attributes and 
personal prerogatives. This deserves our most 
serious consideration. 



CHAPTER V. 
The Most Pure God. 

Job iv; Sap. vii, c. 7; St. Thos. i p. q. 3 ; 
St. Aug. II de Civit c. 10 ; lxv de 
Trin., c. 17. 

COMPLICITY is predicated of God, first, be- 
^ cause in Him there are no parts either 
essential or accidental. He is not composed of 
body and soul like man, nor of matter and form 
like animals or plants, nor of integral parts as are 
all corporeal things, whether substances or ac- 
cidents. There is in Him no compound of subject 
and accidental form, as in all created substances 
even angels, who nevertheless excel all other 
creatures in the simplicity of their nature. Nor 
is there any composition of mode and of things 
modified, as in all created things both substantial 
and accidental. For as they are all limited and 
imperfect they stand in need of divers modes 
which limit them intrinsically or unite them with 
other beings to help them to attain the perfection 
or state which is their due. 

In fact all bodies and all accidental corporeal 
things in the world have a certain mode of exten- 
sion, of density or tenuousness, of limitations ac- 
14 



The Most Pure Cod 15 

cording to their quantity or shape or the place 
they occupy in space. All spiritual substances 
and their accidental forms are denned and en- 
closed in a certain space beyond which they can- 
not extend and within which they can contract in 
an infinite variety of ways. x\ll forms both sub- 
stantial and accidental possess a certain mode of 
inhering to, uniting with, and informing the sub- 
ject to which they belong. All subjects likewise 
are united with their forms and accidents, and all 
the parts of a continuous thing possess a certain 
mode of union with each other. 

In the same way all the degrees of forms which 
increase or decrease in intensity enjoy a mutual 
union by means of a certain intimate and recipro- 
cal penetration and cohesion. 

According to these various modes numberless 
changes are daily being wrought which result 
in the subject presenting itself ceaselessly under 
different aspects. 

Now God is incapable of all this, for the reason 
that He is absolutely without limitation, is su- 
premely perfect in all respects and is infinitely ex- 
alted above them all to such a degree that He can 
not be affected or touched by any created thing. 

Second. God is called simple not only because 
He is exempt from anything compound in His 
nature, but still more so because He is infinitely 



16 The Names of God 

pure, subtile and spiritual, and by His purity is 
infinitely above all that is corporeal or spiritual. 
For the more pure and spiritual a thing is the 
more simple it is. Hence just as the elements, as 
many think, have no component parts and in that 
respect are equally simple in their nature, yet 
when we examine their purity one is found to be 
more simple that the other; water more simple 
than earth, the heavens purer and simpler than 
the elements. Hence as the Divine Essence is of 
infinite sublimity and purity (for it is a Pure Act 
infinitely elevated in its character not only above 
all corporeal substances but above all spirits that 
are or can be created) 1 it is to be rightfully re- 
garded as infinitely simple, so that all the Angelic 
spirits compared to Him do not seem to be spirits 
at all but coarse natures, impure and concrete 
like bodies. By reason of this subtility and sim- 
plicity God's essence can penetrate and pervade 
everything, be intimately present to them inter- 
iorly and unseen, creating, forming, preserving, 



a When we speak of God as a Pure Act we mean that there is 
not in God any capacity or potency of being other than He is. 
Such capacity or potency would imply a defect in an infinitely 
perfect being which is a contradiction in terms. It would also 
suppose a possibility of change in a being who is essentially 
immutable. St. James I, 17 expresses is thus: "Every best gift 
and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the 
Father of lights with whom there is no change nor shadow of 
alteration."— Hurter Theo). 



The Most Pure God 17 

perfecting and holding all creatures and cooperat- 
ing with them all in a way that is absolutely hid- 
den from observation. 

By reason of this simplicity God is infinitely 
more perfect and more excellent than if he pos- 
sessed all perfections in different forms, com- 
pounded and united with each other; for it is in- 
finitely more perfect and more excellent and more 
sublime to possess all perfections by a single form 
than to posses them by different forms. For 
these different forms are really limited to their 
own species. Hence it follows that they could 
not constitute the Divinity or be the Deity it- 
self. But that form which in its supreme sim- 
plicity contains all perfections, is necessarily limit- 
less and infinite. It is Being by itself, a se, and 
consequently is the Divinity itself. 



CHAPTER VI. 
The Eternal God. 

Gen. xxi ; Exod. xv ; Ps. xlvii, xlviii, lx, lxxi ; 
Dionys. c. 10; St. Thos. i p. q. 10; Aug. 
in Ps. ci; Boet. i. 5 de Consol. 

/^ OD is called Eternal because He existed an 
^"* infinity of ages before all imaginable time, 
and because He will exist an infinity of ages after 
all imaginable time. 

Let us go back in thought before the creation 
of the world as many myriads of ages, (and by 
ages I mean centuries) as there are grains of sand 
on every shore of every sea, as there are drops in 
all the seas and lakes and rivers of the earth, as 
there are leaves on all its trees and blades of 
grass in all its meadows, or seeds in all its fields, 
or hairs on the furs of all the animals of the 
world, and to this inconceivable number let us add 
as many millions of ages as would be represented 
by grains of dust that would be necessary to fill 
the universe, and although such an inconceivable 
lapse of time would itself seem an eternity yet 
God would have preceded it by millions of ages. 

Let us go still further. Let an angel with all 
his intellectual power multiply all this vast num- 
ber of ages, going ever higher and higher by 
18 



The Eternal God 19 

squaring and cubing these numbers and keep on 
combining them for thousands of years, at in- 
finite distances and infinite ages from each other : 
God would still be prior to and older than. them 
all. The same must be said even if all these mul- 
tiplications and squarings and cubings constantly 
mounted upwards in a straight line as many times 
as there would be grains of dust enough to fill 
the universe. But no number of years or cen- 
turies can be conceived by a created mind as 
going backward into the past without having 
some term from which they start, yet prior to that 
term there were infinite ages in which God pre- 
ceded it. Hence He is called the Ancient of Days 
(Dan. vii) and The First and The Last 
(Apoc. i). 

In the same way are we to conceive the eternity 
of the future. Imagine in the future as many 
millions of ages as we have just now assigned. 
When they are all completed, there will still be 
millions of ages to come and infinite ages in which 
God will reign with His saints and in which the 
reprobate will suffer in hell. No created mind 
can conceive so great an extent of time which 
would not when it is over suppose an infinite mul- 
titude of ages to follow after. 

Here it must be remembered that the whole of 
eternity, in as much as it expresses a certain 



20 The Names of God 

extent of duration, is, in our manner of conceiv- 
ing it, composed of two parts, although of itself 
it is one and indivisible. We conceive one of 
these parts as existing prior to all imaginable 
time : as being always past. That belongs to God 
alone, and in my opinion could not belong to any 
creature, as we have proved elsewhere from the 
Fathers (Lib. iv de Perf. Div., c. 2). The other 
part is conceived as existing after all imaginable 
ages, as always future, and in such a way that we 
can take nothing from it to diminish it. That fu- 
ture can be communicated to creatures, for it is 
thus that the renovated world, the beatitude of 
the saints and the torments of the reprobate will 
be eternal. 

Second. God is called eternal not only because 
before all conceivable time He has existed for in- 
finite ages and because after all conceivable time 
He will continue to exist for infinite ages, but 
still more because He possesses in a most perfect 
manner both simultaneously and collectively all 
good, all power, all wisdom, all beatitude, all joy 
and delight that could be acquired during an in- 
finite period, and He possesses them immutably 
from all eternity and for all eternity, without any 
beginning and without any end, and in such a way 
that nothing can be added and nothing taken 
away. No one in this world could possess coj- 



The Eternal God 21 

lectively all the honors and all the happiness 
which he is capable of enjoying in the whole 
course of his life in a way to feel, perceive and 
enjoy them simultaneously. Nor could he support 
them all at the same time. He would die with 
excess of joy, for his heart would break. Ex- 
amples of death from too much joy are not rare. 
But God possesses all the joys which He can re- 
ceive from infinite possessions for an infinite 
period simultaneously and collectively for all 
eternity. 

Hence the joy of God is infinite in three ways. 
First, because its object is an infinite good, 
namely the excellency of His Being. Over and 
above that, it has for its object the infinite goods 
that are eminently contained in the Divine Es- 
sence. Secondly, because He possesses simul- 
taneously and collectively all the joy that He 
could receive successively during an infinite 
period. Thirdly, because He possesses all this, 
not for a limited time but during all eternity. 

It is as if there were a material light infinite in 
intensity and extent, capable of having all the per- 
fection that would be expended at every instant 
of its duration, all concentrated on one single 
point, and yet although thus concentrated, would 
be diffused through vast spaces and be every- 
where in all its entirety and in all its perfection. 



22 The Names of God 

In the same way, God from all eternity 
simultaneously and immutably conceives and re- 
tains all His thoughts, all His counsels, all His 
decrees in such a way that nothing new can come 
to Him. He cannot think or wish or decree what 
He has not already thought and wished and de- 
creed from all eternity, because for all things and 
for each in particular, an eternal decree must 
have preceded, and without such a decree noth- 
ing can be done in time. This does not mean that 
absolutely speaking, God could not have made 
other things than those He has made, or is to 
make. Far from us be such a thought; for He 
has the power to make others without end, al- 
though in reality He has not decreed to make them. 
Nevertheless it is impossible that in reality He 
should make anything which He has not from 
all eternity decreed to make. Therefore He can 
absolutely do all things, if we consider His power, 
wisdom and sovereign liberty to formulate from 
all eternity such decrees as it pleases Him to 
do but He cannot do all things, in the hypothe- 
sis or the supposition that there had not 
been on His part an antecedent decree. It be- 
longs to the eminent perfection of His eternity 
and to the immutability of His eternal grandeur 
to have considered, examined and weighed in His 
infinite light all possible things, both those which 



The Eternal God 23 

will be done in time and those which will not 
be done; all as exactly and as perfectly as if He 
had weighed and considered each in particular 
during an infinite period. Hence there is no 
reason why He could not decree simultaneously 
and at one time with regard to all things and to 
each in particular, determining what should be 
done or permitted at some infinite period after- 
wards. Indeed that is necessary in order that 
His will with regard to certain objects should 
not, so to speak, be held in suspense. That would 
be an imperfection. 

Hence there is no succession of acts or of un- 
derstanding or of will in God. What He thinks 
and sees, He thinks and sees always. Whom He 
loves once, He loves always, but He loves him 
for that time in which he is loveable, namely as 
long as he is in a state of grace. Whom He hates 
once He hates always, not however absolutely, 
but only for the time that such a one is worthy 
of hatred; for when the reason for hatred is re- 
moved the person becomes an object of love. 
These acts which according to our manner of 
conceiving them exist in God from all eternity 
do not properly speaking cease to be ; nor do they 
spring up again, nor are they formed anew, but 
they remain invariable with regard to their object 
according as it is considered for a certain time 



24 The Names of God 

and in a certain state, and they are not called 
absolute except in such time as the objects exist 
in a certain state, and for the time during which 
they will exist or have existed in that state. 

Third. God is called Eternal, for the reason 
that He is above eternity, and is the cause of 
eternity in creatures. For through that omnipo- 
tent, continual and unchangeable influence He 
creates and preserves all things. He is the cause 
of the continuance in existence of the world, the 
angels and men, and He is the cause of the state 
of glory and the state of damnation. Finally all 
things have received from Him their duration, 
their limit of age, their span of existence, their 
length of life, their time of birth, their time of 
death, each according to its nature and condition. 



G 



CHAPTER VII. 
The Most High God. 

Gen. xiv; Num. xxiv; Job iii. 

OD is called the Most High because He is the 
cause of all sublimity or elevation in 
creatures, whether it be of local altitude as when 
we speak of the high heavens, or official promi- 
nence like that of kings and princes or prelates; 
or superiority of nature such as the angels possess 
over corporeal substances, or the perfection of 
state like that of the elect, of the Blessed Virgin, 
or of the Sacred Humanity of Christ. It is God 
who regulates, adjusts, and bestows all this ex- 
altedness and superiority. He arranges in ex- 
quisite order all the visible and invisible parts of 
the universe. 

Second. He is called The Most High because 
He alone is really sublime and exalted, for all 
elevation or sublimity in created things is, when 
compared to His, no elevation at all, but only an 
image and a shadow of it. In effect all the kings 
and princes of the world, and all the angels and 
blessed are, of their very nature, His servants 
and slaves ; even if by His love and the communi- 
cation of His Spirit He has adopted them and 
aalls them His children. 

25 



26 The Names of God 

Third. God is justly called The Most High, 
because by His Essence and all His perfections, 
He is infinitely above all creatures, not only those 
that actually exist, but those that are possible or 
conceivable, no matter how exalted, or mighty, 
or wise, or great, or beautiful, or happy they 
may be imagined to be. Hence it follows that 
God is called The Most High not only because He 
is above all creatures, but because He is infinitely 
above them; in such a manner that between the 
most exalted creature existing, and God, there 
are infinite grades of angelic species rising higher 
and higher towards Him. The same must be 
said of the degrees of beatitude. Hence every 
creature no matter how exalted, is, if I may say 
so, placed at an infinite distance beneath Him, 
although in the same space. Hence between the 
creature and God Himself there is an infinite 
distance; not of place but of nature or degree. 
The mystics call this the Solitude of God. 



CHAPTER VIII. 
The Immutable God. 

Ps. ci; Malach. iii; James i. 

f* OD is called Immutable, first, because all 
^"* permanency and all immutability in created 
things is derived from Him. It is He who will 
keep forever this whole universe in its place and 
in the state of glory which the divine power will 
invest it with after the universal judgment. In 
the same way He will keep the angels and men 
in their state of glory or their state of damna- 
tion. 

Second. God is called Immutable, because in 
Him there cannot be the slightest diminution or 
increase; neither in His substance, nor power, 
nor perfection, nor understanding, nor will, nor 
place, nor situation, nor in any mode of being 
whatsoever. If all men and all angels and the 
entire universe and all created things should 
perish He would lose nothing in Himself. The 
plenitude of His joy and of His felicity and the 
affluence of every good would be always the same 
in Him. For He holds all things ever present in 
the light of His supreme wisdom and in the om- 

27 



28 The Names of God 

nipotence of His might. Nor can there be any 
change in His manner of possessing them, nor 
can any creature evade His control. At the 
least sign on His part all things would exist anew 
in their respective natures and serve Him as be- 
fore. Hence it follows, that the destruction of all 
things would cause Him no loss. As the Royal 
Prophet says : "When the wicked shall spring up 
as grass, and all the workers of iniquity shall 
appear, that they may perish for ever and ever, 
but Thou, O Lord, art most high forever more." 
(Ps. xci.) 

The reason of this immutability of God is that 
all He has or can have, He has actually by His 
Essence. Hence there can be in Him no diminu- 
tion or increase, unless that Essence should in 
some manner vary. But it admits no change, 
for it is infinitely exalted above all that is subject 
to change. 



CHAPTER IX. 
The Immortal God. 

I Tim., i, vi. 

r^ OD is called Immortal, first, because being a 
**-* simple substance which is self-subsisting, 
He cannot in any manner perish by dissolution, as 
man who ceases to 'live when his soul is separated 
from his body. Nevertheless this immortality is 
common to God and to all self-subsisting simple 
substances. Because they are simple, they can- 
not perish by a division into the parts of their 
nature, and being self-subsistent they do not de- 
pend on any subject whose death or alteration 
must cause them to perish; as happens for in- 
stance with the souls or lives of animals and 
plants, when the body is destroyed. Being sepa- 
rated from their subjects they cannot perform 
any function and consequently conservation is 
not due them. 

God is properly called Immortal because He is 
by His nature, such that He cannot in any manner 
cease to be, whereas all other beings without ex- 
ception are so constituted that they can lose their 
life, their nature and all that they are. Hence in 

29 



30 The Names of God 

the epistle to Timothy, St. Paul says in speaking 
of God : "He alone has immortality/' 

The reason is that God being the First and Su- 
preme Being, and the foundation of all beings 
can in no manner be dependent on any other be- 
ing whatever, and consequently He cannot cease 
to be, or lose His existence by the withdrawal of 
the influence or the support of any cause. 

Hence God is, by His nature, absolutely and in 
every way immortal. But all creatures, even the 
angels and the blessed whose nature and life seem 
to be especially immortal, depend by their nature 
on the continual influence of God, by whom they 
were created, formed and preserved with all their 
natural or beatified life ; and they are by the con- 
dition of their nature such, that they may lose 
both of these lives and cease to be, if it so hap- 
pened that God who of His free will preserves 
them, withdraws his concurrence. 

Thus although the scholastic philosophers and 
theologians teach that the angels are absolutely 
immortal in their nature, because they have noth- 
ing in them that can cause their extinction, and 
because no created thing can make them perish, 
for their natures are simple, they are neverthe- 
less said by the Holy Fathers to be, of their na- 
ture, mortal, and only by the goodness and grace 
of God, immortal. However by grace is meant 



The Immortal God 31 

in this instance, a free and gratuitous influence 
of God, by which He preserves their nature; and 
as this grace is a preservative of their nature it 
was not called supernatural but natural. It was 
gratuitous because it did not come from the merits 
of the recipients but was purely a gift like 
creation. Hence the angels when compared to 
other creatures in general are called immortal; 
but when compared to God they are sometimes 
described as mortal. 

Third. God is called Immortal because He is 
absolutely unchangeable. Not only He cannot 
lose His existence but cannot lose anything that 
is in Him. Nothing can be taken from His 
majesty, nor from His greatness, nor glory, nor 
beatitude, nor wisdom, nor peace, nor tranquillity, 
nor from the superabundance of whatever good 
He possesses. Nor can His counsels or decrees 
be changed. For any change whatever would 
imply that He had ceased to be immortal in every- 
thing. The reason is that, in every change in 
which something is lost, there intervenes a sort 
of death with regard to that particular thing 
which is taken away. 



CHAPTER X. 

The Invisible God. 

Exod. xxxiii; I Tim. i; John i. 

'"THE Apostle joins the Invisibility of God to 
* his Immortality when he says: "Now to 
the King of ages immortal, invisible, the only 
God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. 
Amen." 

God is called Invisible, first, because He cannot 
be seen as He is in Himself, by the eyes of the 
body; for what is altogether spiritual cannot be 
the object of bodily sight. 

Second. God is called Invisible because no 
created intellect, by its own natural light, can see 
Him clearly as He is in Himself ; nor is there any 
possible intelligence which could see Him by its 
natural powers. Thus He is invisible to all 
creatures and can be seen and known only by 
Himself. It is in this sense that the Apostle calls 
God Invisible. 

Third. He is called Invisible because although 
in some manner He may be seen clearly by a 
created spirit aided by the light of glory, He can- 
not be seen comprehensively, namely in such a 
32 



The Invisible God 33 

way that nothing escapes the one who sees. For 
every vision of the blessed is infinitely removed 
from the comprehensive vision of God, and God 
transcends infinitely all that they can see. In 
that sense some of the Fathers say that God is 
invisible and unknown to all creatures, and that 
He alone can see and know Himself as He is. 



CHAPTER XL 
The Incomprehensible God. 

Job. ix ; Jer. xxxii ; Rom. ii. 

/^ OD is called Incomprehensible for four 
**■* reasons : First, He is Incomprehensible to 
the understanding, because no creature even with 
the light of glory, no matter how great the illumi- 
nation may be, can comprehend Him; that is to 
say, can know Him in such a way that nothing 
escapes the one who contemplates or knows Him. 
For there will always remain an infinity of things 
which will not be distinctly known or conceived. 
There will be an infinite number of conceptions of 
things, there will be an infinity of complacencies 
in possible things, an infinity of decrees, especially 
of conditioned decrees and an infinity of modes 
in which the Divine Essence is imitable. And 
even if a created spirit should see all those things 
distinctly in God by means of some elevated de- 
gree of glory, such as that which is in the soul of 
Christ (a thing however which is absolutely im- 
possible), nevertheless God would not be properly 
and perfectly known by that spirit, because such 
knowledge would not in its clearness equal the 
Divine Essence and would never succeed in know- 
34 



The Incomprehensible God 35 

ing God as perfectly and as clearly as He can be 
known. It would remain infinitely below that 
requisite clearness for the reason that it is es- 
sentially finite. Hence it follows that such 
knowledge would not be equal to God's and could 
never perfectly comprehend Him. It would com- 
prehend Him only in part, that is to say, accord- 
ing to the multitude of objects known and not ac- 
cording to the clearness and perfection of 
knowledge. 

God is also Incomprehensible to the under- 
standing, in this sense, that no created under- 
standing, no matter how exalted, can by the 
powers of its nature attain to Him in such a 
manner as to see Him clearly and know Him as 
He is. Let thought soar as high as it may, it will 
be always infinitely removed from the clear 
knowledge of God's Being. 

Second. God is Incomprehensible to the will 
and to the heart, because no spirit: can love, 
honor, esteem, praise or revere Him as much as 
He deserves. He is infinitely above all the love, 
honor, esteem, praise and reverence that any and 
every creature might pay Him, even of all the 
blessed taken collectively. (Eccl. xliii 30, et seq.) 

Third. He is Incomprehensible relatively to 
space, because being Immense He cannot be con- 
fined to any space no matter how vast. 



36 The Names of God 

Fourth. He is Incomprehensible zvith regard 
to time, because being Eternal, He is before all 
conceivable duration, He precedes it by an in- 
finity of ages, and there still remains an infinity 
of ages after any duration that the mind can 
conceive. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Ineffable God. 

Jer. xxxii; Eccl. xliii; John xi ; xii; 
Tim. vi. 

J 

f~* OD is called Ineffable, first, because there is 
^-* no word nor speech that can describe Him 
as He is in Himself, even if one should write as 
many books as would fill the whole world. 

Second. Because not only is it impossible to 
speak of Him by words of the lips, but no created 
spirit can without the light of glory conceive Him 
such as He is, and hence cannot represent Him 
even by mental words. For every conception by 
which a created spirit can represent God to itself 
without the help of the light of glory, is infinitely 
removed from the truth. Hence it follows that a 
single word by which the blessed represent and 
express God in their mind, is infinitely superior 
to all the wisdom of men and angels. Thus God 
is not ineffable to the blessed, but He is to men 
and angels outside of the state of beatitude. 

Third. God is called Ineffable, because He is 
so sublime, infinite and immense, that even with 
the light of glory, the blessed cannot by any 

37 



38 The Names of God 

mental word represent Him to themselves or 
speak of Him in an adequate and comprehensive 
manner. That belongs to Him alone. In that 
way He is ineffable even to the blessed. 



CHAPTER XIII. 
The Almighty God. 

Gen. xvii ; Exod. xv ; Tob. xiii ; 
Job. viii. 

(~* OD is called Omnipotent or Almighty, first, 
^-* in as much as He is the Cause from which 
are all power, all virtue, all energy, all vigor and 
all efficiency in the whole of creation: on the 
earth, in the sea, in the stars, in the stones, in the 
metals, in the plants, in the minerals, in man and 
in angels. All power to do anything be it ever 
so insignificant is but a slight participation in the 
power of God. 

Second. God is formally Omnipotent because 
He possesses infinite power; or rather He is in- 
finite self-subsisting power itself. He can do all 
things that a created spirit can conceive; and such 
things are infinite in their genus and species. 
For instance one can conceive infinite worlds like 
ours, and others unlike it; an infinity of angels, 
an infinity of peoples, an infinity of metals, gold, 
silver etc., an infinity of precious stones and 
so on. 

When we say that God can make an infinite 

39 



40 The Names of God 

number of things we must understand it in this 
sense, viz: that whatever may be the number of 
things of every kind that He has created, He can 
still create others without end; so that no created 
mind can conceive a number of things so great 
that God can not make as many more, endlessly. 
However He could not create things that would 
be actually infinite. Such is the more probable 
opinion of St. Thomas and of many others. For 
a creature cannot be actually infinite as we have 
elsewhere demonstrated. 

Moreover God can not only do what no created 
mind can conceive, and He can do so in any 
number, quantity and perfection whatever, but 
He can also do whatever His infinite wisdom can 
conceive, either outside or within Himself, and 
such things would be infinitely greater and more 
marvellous than anything a created mind could 
conceive. For all things that His infinite mind 
can conceive or form interiorly by knowing, He 
can produce and form outside of Himself. In 
that way His power equals His wisdom. 

Third. He is called Almighty because He can 
make all things instantly, without delay, without 
effort, with supreme and infinite facility, by a 
single sign of His will, by a single word. It 
would be incomparably more easy for Him to 
create a thousand new worlds than for us to pro- 



The Almighty God 41 

nounce the word "world"; and could there be 
anything easier than that? 

Fourth. He is called Almighty or rather "He 
who holdeth all things" ; because He holds in His 
hand all things, and each in particular in its 
innermost nature. He binds them in their unity 
lest they should dissolve and fade away. He is 
the basis and foundation that holds, sustains and 
conserves. For He is the root of all things, from 
which all being springs with an ineffable 
fecundity. He is the bond, the link of all things, 
holding them together in their several unities lest 
they dissolve and disappear. He is the basis 
and foundation of all, sustaining them and pre- 
venting them from falling back into their own 
nothingness. 



CHAPTER XIV. 
The Most Wise God. 



Prov. I iii, ix; Wis. vii, viii ; Math, ii ; 
Luke vii ; Dionys c. 7, de Divin. Nom. ; 
St. Thos. I p. q. 14. 



r^ OD is called Wise and Wisdom for the 
^""* reason, first, that He is the cause of all wis- 
dom, and all knowledge whether little or great 
in the blessed, in the angels, in man and even in 
the animals; for from His wisdom everything 
emanates, down to that slight amount of knowl- 
edge which the instinct in animals reveals. 

Second. God is called formally Wise, not be- 
cause He is endowed and imbued with wisdom as 
the angels are, but because He is self-subsisting 
Wisdom in which is eminently contained the 
plenitude of all wisdom. By that Wisdom, from 
the first moment of its activity, if one may so 
speak, He comprehends with infinite clarity His 
own Essence, the procession of Persons in the 
most Holy Trinity, as well as the Persons them- 
selves. Then, in the second instant, from all 
eternity and through all eternity, He directs His 
gaze with infinite clearness on all things possible, 
42 



The Most J Vise God 43 

doing so by the power of the knowledge of His 
own Essence. In the third instant, His gaze em- 
braces all -that can be done by any created or 
creatable power. In the fourth instant, He looks 
out upon all that might be done in every 
possible hypothesis, namely on what are called 
conditional futures, and they are infinitely infinite, 
for the circumstances of each of the things that 
depend on free will may vary infinitely, and each 
of these things may be done in an infinite variety 
of ways. In the fifth instant, He sees in an abso- 
lute manner all future things during all eternity 
with all their attendant circumstances. 

Third. God is called Wise, because He is so 
in a very special and eminent way which cannot 
be communicated to any creature. For as two 
things are necessary for wisdom, viz: the light 
to know and the object known, He has of Him- 
self both one and the other in an eminent degree, 
and in infinite perfection. In effect, He is Himself 
the infinite self-subsisting light of intelligence, 
and He is Himself and by Himself every intelli- 
gible object, or contains it in Himself eminently. 
He does not need to borrow from any one either 
the light of intelligence or the object which is 
understood by the intelligence. 



CHAPTER XV. 
The Beautiful God. 



Dionys. c. 4 de Nom. Div; Cant, i, xv 
Wis. cxiii, 3. 



/^ OD is called Beautiful, first, because He is 
^-* the source of all beauty of the angels and 
men; of the heavens, the elements, the animals, 
plants, pearls, precious stones and all other 
created things. All their beauty and attractive- 
ness, both internal and external, that which ap- 
peals to the senses as well as that which delights 
the intelligence have been received by them, 
through Him and from His wisdom. 

There are seven degrees of beauty. The first 
is the external beauty that we see with our eyes, 
in the flowers or precious stones, in the appear- 
ance or form of animals, and of men and women ; 
in the stars, the sun and the moon. This is the 
beauty that mortals admire so much and which 
exercises such a fascination on them and prompts 
them to pursue it. 

The second degree is the interior beauty of 
those forms from which exterior beauty proceeds. 
This interior beauty is incomparably greater and 
44 



The Beautiful God 45 

more admirable because in a simple form and in a 
simple power there is contained in an ineffable 
manner all the variety which appears externally 
in the flowers, in the plants, in the structure of 
animals, in colors and figures and in all other 
things. Thus in the virtue of the seed is con- 
tained the whole structure, the figures and the 
colors of plants, animals, etc. 

The third degree of beauty is found in the lives 
of animals or in what are called sentient souls. 
In that simple form is contained the power of the 
senses, the power of the imagination and the 
power of the sensitive appetite. All these things 
are so admirable that the human soul cannot 
comprehend the hundredth part of them. The 
sensitive or sentient soul is so far above the vege- 
tative that there is more beauty in one single 
sentient soul than in all vegetative souls together. 

The fourth degree of beauty is that of the 
rational soul which is incomparably more beauti- 
ful than all sentient souls taken together. 

The fifth degree is in the angelic nature which 
is incomparably more beautiful than the rational 
soul. 

The sixth degree is that of the inhabitants of 
heaven whose beauty surpasses that of the whole 
universe, even if that beauty were all united in 
its entirety under one form. 



46 Names of God 

The seventh degree is that of the Divine beauty 
in which all the natural and supernatural, all 
the spiritual and corporeal beauty of all created 
or creatable beings is most eminently and most 
unitedly contained. All of this, however, is as 
nothing in comparison with the beauty of God. 
For that reason, the sight of the divine beauty 
will ravish and transport the inhabitants of 
heaven incomparably more than the sight of the 
glory of the saints, of the whole celestial court 
and of all the universe, although they also must 
be a source of inconceivable delight. 

Second. God is called Beautiful, because He 
is Himself formally infinite Beauty surpassing 
infinitely all created or creatable beauty, and 
everything else that the divine intelligence could 
conceive outside of itself. It follows from this, 
that He is infinitely lovable, an infinite source of 
delight, and has an infinite power of drawing the 
spirit to love Him; and although in reality He 
does not attract infinitely the spirits of the blessed, 
because their vision has not an infinite perfection, 
yet He attracts them with such a power that they 
all, of necessity love Him, and cannot in any man- 
ner suspend or arrest their love ; and the greater 
the necessity of loving God there is in the inhabi- 
tants of heaven, the greater is their happiness, 



CHAPTER XVI 

The Good God. 



Dionys. 4, 5, 13. 



G 



OD is called Good, first, because He is the 
source of all good. From Him comes all 
that men and angels and the whole universe 
possess in the realms of nature, grace, and glory ; 
and all created good is but a slight participation, 
a little spark of the Infinite Good. He is the 
author of every essential perfection that makes a 
thing be called good in itself, and also of every 
proportion and congruity that renders a thing 
good for that to which it is adapted. 

Second. God is called Good formally, because 
in Him is the plenitude of every good that a 
created spirit can conceive, so that no one can 
imagine any good or any perfection which is not 
contained in Him in a supreme degree and in in- 
finite excess. 

In Him there is an infinite light, an infinite 
power, an infinite wisdom, an infinite beauty, an 
infinite sweetness, an infinite joy, an infinite glory, 
an infinite beatitude, an infinite holiness, an in- 
finite justice, and an infinite mercy. More than 
that, He is Himself all these things in the most 

47 



48 Names of God 

simple and sublime manner by His absolutely 
simple Essence. 

Third. God is called The Supreme Good, be- 
cause He is so transcendentally good that He is 
infinitely above all good that a created mind can 
conceive, and yet He is like to none of these 
things, so that all conceivable goodness should be 
rather denied than affirmed of Him. 



CHAPTER XVII. 
The Holy God. 

Isaias vi; Levit. ii, 19, 20 et seq., 
Dionys. c. 12. 

/^L OD is called Holy, first, as the cause and 
source of all holiness that can be found in 
men and angels ; for all holiness comes from Him 
as from an infinite fountain of purity and 
holiness. 

Second. He is called Holy, in as much as He 
is the object and measure of all holiness. As He 
is Himself infinite purity, and as He is infinitely 
spiritual, the more we approach Him by knowl- 
edge and love, the more we advance in holiness; 
for, to know and love Him and to cleave to Him 
by sincerest love is that genuine, formal or es- 
sential holiness by which every spirit is formally 
sanctified and is called holy. 

Third. He is called Holy, not only in as much 
as He is the object of all holiness or, in other 
words, objective holiness, but still more because 
He is formally holy or is formal holiness. For 
as true holiness consists in the knowledge, love 
and enjoyment of God, and as He knows Himself 

49 



50 Names of God 

infinitely, and loves Himself infinitely, it is clear 
that His holiness is infinite, and that He is in- 
finitely holy. Nay more, He is Himself infinite 
holiness because He is the infinite knowledge, 
love and enjoyment of Himself. 

Fourth. He is called Holy because all that 
belongs to the essence of holiness, He has of Him- 
self, and with an infinite perfection. Two things 
are required for holiness ; love and the object, or 
the purity of the object. Now God possesses both 
by Himself. He is the infinite love of Himself. 
He is the object of infinite purity in that love in 
which formal sanctity consists. He is thus 
infinite holiness, both formal and objective and 
He is by His Essence, the measure of all holiness; 
of His own, of that of the angels, and of men. 
He is by the love of Himself formally holy ; He is 
holiness itself and is the source of holiness. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 
The Merciful God. 

James v ; Ps. lxxxv, cii, ex, cxliv ; 
Dionys. c. 4, 5 ; St. Thos. I p. q. 21. 

t^ OD is called Merciful, first, because He is the 
^* source of all mercy and of every merciful 
prompting in men and angels. 

Second. Because in so far as depends on Him, 
He is ready to save the whole human race which 
had lapsed from eternal salvation into eternal 
misery. He is ready not only to free it from that 
misery but to restore it to eternal happiness. 
For that He has paid a price more than 
sufficient, and besides He has, in effect, delivered 
from eternal misery an infinite multitude of souls 
whom He has enabled to attain to the enjoyment 
of the infinite and eternal good. 

Third. Nor has He done this in an easy man- 
ner, as when He created the world or when He 
conferred beatitude on the angelic nature, but at 
the cost of labors, pains and immense sacrifices, 
humbling Himself by assuming the baseness and 
infirmity of human nature; embracing poverty 
and want, and countless miseries and afflictions, 

51 



52 Names of God 

anguish and toil; submitting to shameful out- 
rages, buffets and scourgings; permitting Him- 
self to be spat upon, and accepting the cross, and 
the crudest kind of death; and finally delivering 
Himself up to us under the species of bread and 
wine in the most holy Sacrament of the Eucha- 
rist. All that He has done out of His infinite 
mercy to lift us out of infinite evil and raise us up 
to infinite good. 



CHAPTER XIX. 
The Just God. 

Ps. x, cxi, cxliv; Isaias xxiv, lxii ; Jer. 
xxiii, xxxiii; Dan. iii, ix ; II Tim. iv ; 
Dionys. c. 8; St. Thos. I p. q. 21. 

f^ OD is called Just, first, because He is the 
^ - * source and cause of all justice; for all the 
justice, all the rectitude, and all the holiness of 
angels and of men emanates from Him as a feeble 
ray and as an image of that Justice which towers 
infinitely above all created justice. 

Second. God is Just formally, for as supreme 
justice consists in the love of God, which makes 
us conformable in the highest degree to the 
eternal law, and as God is the most perfect and 
sublime love of Himself, it follows necessarily 
that He is Formal Justice, most sublime and most 
complete. He is infinitely perfect Justice and in- 
finitely above all the justice of the blessed. 

Third. God is called Just objectively, because 
he is the object of all justice and of all rectitude. 
To love Him is the highest justice; and although 
we give the name of justice to that virtue which 
accords to every one his due, vet that is only 

53 



54 Names of God 

human and political justice, and is the lowest in 
the scale of justice. What we refer to now is that 
supreme justice by which a man is formally just 
before God. It is the same as that by which God 
is just; and consists in the love of God and in a 
supreme conformity with the eternal law. In that 
kind of justice, human justice is eminently con- 
tained. 

Fourth. God is called Just as legislator and 
judge, because He loves justice and hates in- 
justice, in the greatest possible degree. That is 
to say He abhors those acts that are in opposition 
to the divine law 7 and the divine majesty, and for- 
bids them under pain of eternal damnation. 

Finally God will establish and build on an ever- 
lasting foundation that order which the demons 
and men have violated. He will restore and re- 
habilitate it by rendering to all men according to 
their works on the day when He shall come to 
judge the world. 



CHAPTER XX. 



The Benign God. 



Ps. lxviii ; Wis. i ; Joel ii ; Luke, vi 
Dionys. c. 4 and 5. 



D ENIGNITY is that attribute of God which the 
*-* Greek text of the Bible expresses by the 
word direst os and the Vulgate by the word 
snavis as we see in Psalms xxxiii, Ixxxv, cviii and 
elsewhere. 

It is attributed to God because of His infinite 
tendency to bestow limitless and eternal good. 
It is that benignity which prompted Him to create 
angels and men ; to form them to His image so 
as to give them a share in His divinity and glory. 

Second. His Benignity in our regard mani- 
fested itself especially after the ruin caused by 
sin. Far from rejecting us when we were lost, 
He showed a greater sweetness in our regard, 
by sending us His Son, in order that being in- 
carnate and visible among us He might con- 
verse with us and thereby lift us out of our sins, 
show us the way of salvation, give us an example 
of how to live, satisfy the Divine Justice, redeem 
us bv His passion and death, wash us in His 

55 



56 Names of God 

Blood, sanctify us by His Spirit and make us 
children of God. Over and above all this, He 
furnishes us with the means of salvation. He 
gave us those powerful helps, which are of a sen- 
sible and external character and are so wonder- 
fully adapted to our nature. 

Third. He gave us moreover, another ravish- 
ing manifestation of His Benignity. Before He 
ascended into heaven He delivered Himself en- 
tirely to us in the Sacrament of the Eucharist, in 
order to be for us always by His presence a source 
of consolation in our exile. He made it possible 
for us to offer it as a sacrifice so as to appease 
God's justice; and by receiving it as a sacrament 
to make us share in His divinity. 

Finally, the Benignity of God shows itself in 
His dealings with sinners. He not only bears 
with them patiently, and refrains from punishing 
them though they repeatedly relapse into sin, but 
He calls them back when they wander away; 
He invites them to repentance, and is ever ready 
to restore them to grace whenever they wish to 
return. And when they do return, they are not 
received with harshness nor reproached for their 
ingratitude, but are greeted with kindness and 
tenderness as children who are infinitely dear to 
Him and He reinstates them in their former po- 
sition of children of God. 



The Benign God 57 

As the climax of His Benignity He demands 
nothing of us above our strength, but only what 
is easy and acceptable to a well balanced mind. 
He assures us: "My yoke is sweet and my 
burden is light/' 



CHAPTER XXL 
The Patient God. 

Exod. xxxiv; Num. xiv; Ps. lxxxvi, cii, cxliv; 
Eccles. v; Joel, ii; II Esdras, ix. 

f\ OD shows His Patience and His Longa- 
nimity in the most admirable manner. 
For although His majesty and power are infinite; 
and although everything takes place in His pres- 
ence and before His eyes, yet He bears with 
everything patiently and long withholds His 
vengeance. He does so lest we should be hurled 
to eternal death. He even suffers infinite ingrati- 
tude and submits to an infinity of outrages with 
which mortals requite His countless benefits. He 
bears with idolatry, blasphemy, insults, rage, 
hate, perfidy, perjury, sacrileges, conspiracies 
with his enemies, contempt of religion, contempt 
of the commandments, contempt of the Passion 
of Jesus Christ, contempt of all His benefits, and 
contempt of all the heavenly blessings He has 
promised. He has all that constantly before His 
eyes and yet He submits to it all with patience. 

Now it must be remembered that the gravity of 
an offense increases in proportion as the majesty 
58 



The Patient God 59 

and power of the one who is offended is more ex- 
alted, his presence more august, and the benefits 
which he has conferred more extraordinary. 
But as the majesty and power of God are infinite, 
as the benefits He has bestowed are of an infinite 
value, and as all this evil has been done in the 
infinite light of His countenance, it follows evi- 
dently that outrages against Him assume a cer- 
tain character of infinite malice, and that His 
patience is infinite in tolerating them. 

God is moreover called Patient because He 
bears with these injuries not only twice or thrice, 
or four, or five, or ten times, which no earthly 
prince would do, but a hundred times, nay a 
thousand, ten thousand, a hundred thousand 
times. Surely there is nothing to be compared 
to it and it surpasses the power of men or angels 
to fathom its mystery. 

Not only does God restrain His avenging hand, 
but with the greatest sweetness restrains the 
angels and the demons who are eager to use their 
power against us to cast us into hell. St. 
Matthew teaches us this in the parable where the 
master forbids his servants to pluck out the cockle 
lest they might at the same time pluck out the 
wheat along with it. He bade them let both grow 
until the harvest, that is to say till the Day of 
Judgment. (Matt, c, xiii.) 



60 Names of God 

Not only does God tolerate all this iniquity and 
withhold His vengeance, but He continues to 
pour out His blessings with an astounding profu- 
sion "making His sun to shine on the good and 
the wicked and His rain to fall on the just and 
the unjust." 

Moreover He is prodigal in bestowing riches 
and honors and pleasure on His sworn enemies. 
He even gives them kingdoms and empires, the 
glory of the world, health, beauty, and long life; 
in brief, whatever men esteem most on earth. 

We should remember that there are two kinds 
of patience. One shows itself in suffering sor- 
row and pain and the afflictions and discomforts 
incident to this life. This is the patience that 
shines with especial brilliancy in the martyrs and 
in most of the saints. The other kind consists in 
supporting outrages, injuries, contempt. That 
is the only kind in God and in Him it is infinite. 
If we wish to be His children we should imitate 
Him in this respect. But both kinds were prac- 
ticed in the most eminent degree by Jesus Christ, 
and that is why we should imitate Him both in 
the one and the other. 



CHAPTER XXII. 
The God of Clemency. 

Exod. xxxiv; II Paral. xxx 2; 
Esdras. ix; Jonas, iv. 

/"I OD is called Clement because of His exceed- 
ingly great kindliness towards sinners. 

First. As a judge full of meekness, He 
readily diminishes the punishment due to sin ; for 
even in the other life, the penalties are less than 
the offenses deserve, and God might justly punish 
the reprobate with much greater torments than 
those they suffer. In this life a single sigh of 
genuine sorrow is sufficient to make Him remit 
the eternal punishment due to sin and commute 
it to a temporal one, which is accepted as satis- 
factory, though it is slight and brief. Moreover 
He has deigned to make it possible for us, to buy 
ourselves off even from this temporal punishment 
by many very easy means. 

Second. His clemency is resplendent also in 
the facility with which He pardons all the in- 
juries committed against Him, even if they are 
infinite in number, and in some respect infinite in 
their atrocity. For there are no sins so great, 

61 



62 Names of God 

either in multitude or enormity, that He is not 
ready to pardon and to forget utterly if we repent 
of them from the bottom of our heart, and ask 
His forgiveness. Not only will He do that once, 
or twice, or ten times, or a hundred times, but 
thousands and tens of thousands of times. 

Not merely is He ready to pardon us, but to 
adopt us as His children, and to admit us into a 
participation of His glory. Hence though He has 
abased His majesty in a manner that is amazing, 
He calls in a thousand ways to those who flee 
from Him; nay He entreats even His greatest 
enemies, promising to pardon them whenever 
they wish to return. He wishes to remove from 
above their heads the everlasting curse which is 
impending and to adopt them as His children 
and make them participators in His glory. 

Finally His most sweet clemency appears 
chiefly in that He has sent us His Son to teach us 
and to call us back to Him by penance and a holy 
life, in order that we may escape the pains of hell 
and obtain eternal life and the communion of His 
glory. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 
The God of Sweetness. 

Ps. xxiv; II Petr. ii. 

/'"I OD is called Szveet, first, because He is the 

source of all sweetness whether corporeal 
or spiritual ; for all that there is of sweet or suave, 
or lovable or delectable in created things comes 
from Him, and is a slight participation in His 
sweetness which knows no bounds. 

Second. Because not only every sweet and 
delectable object is from Him, but also because 
every feeling of sweetness in men and angels is 
from Him ; for He has made and formed in them 
the faculty which renders them capable of that 
pleasure. He has likewise made every delectable 
object and every fitness and adaptableness which 
an object has to the faculty of the soul with which 
it cooperates in the perception of that object's 
sweetness. Thus He is the cause of all delight. 

Third. Because He is the eternal and infinite 
sweetness of all the heavenly spirits and of all 
the souls of the blessed. He is such, both as ob- 
ject and as cause. As object because it is in the 
enjoyment of God and the tasting of His sweet- 

63 



64 Names of God 

ness that they feel themselves inundated with the 
greatest joy; as cause, for it is He who is the 
author not only of the light of glory by which the 
angels and the blessed see God clearly, but He is 
the author also of the habit of charity by which 
we love God above all things. From this follow 
that pleasure and boundless joy which they feel 
in the good things of God, that is to say, in the 
blessed tasting of His immeasurable sweetness. 

Fourth. Because He is infinite sweetness both 
objectively and formally. Objectively because 
He is Himself the object of infinite sweetness. 
In Him everything sweet and delectable is super- 
eminently contained. Formally because in be- 
holding Himself comprehensively or according to 
all that He is, He derives from Himself infinite 
joy and infinite delight. Moreover He is Him- 
self infinite love and from Himself conceives, so 
to speak, infinite joy. 

To Jesus is given the name Duke do Cordium; 
the sweetness of hearts. The expression is St. 
Bernard's, and is most appropriate, for it is 
Christ who by the bitterness of His Passion, de- 
livered us from eternal damnation and trans- 
ferred us to the eternal sweetness of heaven. 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

The True God. 

Exod. xxxiv, 6; Deut. vii, xxxii ; II Paral. xv; 
Wis. i; Ps. cxliv; Jer. x; John xiv, 10; I John 
v, 12; Dionys. c. 7; St. Thos. I p. q. 16. 

/^l OD is called True, Truth and The First 
Truth in four different ways. 

First. In His Essence or objectively ; because 
He is the first object of the intellect. In Him all 
intelligible objects and all objective truth are 
eminently contained. From Him every creature 
has received the truth of his being and possesses 
the privilege of being truly such according to the 
species and degree of its essence; of being called 
with truth such a creature and no other. Thus, 
for example, we can say this is truly a man, this 
is truly a lion, this is truly gold, and so on for all 
other creatures. Hence the truth of all things de- 
scends from the First Truth which is the truth of 
the Divine Essence. 

Moreover the objective truth of things and 
especially of those that already exist consists in 
the conformity of their nature with the divine 
idea, in accordance with which and by which they 
have been made. But if we consider them ac- 

65 



66 Names of God 

cording to their possible nature, by abstracting 
from their being or non-being, then their objec- 
tive truth will consist in their conformity with the 
Divine Essence, in as much as the Divine Essence 
is imitable or can admit of being participated in. 
For it is thence as from the original idea of all 
things that arises the nature of the possibles, as I 
have elsewhere shown. 

Second. God is called the First Truth in 
Knowledge. He is the Truth because He is 
the most true, certain, clear and exalted concep- 
tion of Himself. He is moreover the First Truth 
because from Him descends all knowledge in men 
and angels and even in animals, which have the 
last and lowest participation in that knowledge. 

By His wisdom and knowledge God has. formed 
in creatures all their power of knowing and He 
has determined the degree of knowledge which 
they should enjoy. He also lends them His con- 
currence so that according to their degree they 
participate in real knowledge. 

Third. God is called the First Truth in 
Speech. He is the Faithful Witness because as 
He is Himself His own knowledge, His own love, 
His own charity, so is He His own Truth. More- 
over the virtue of truthfulness in men and angels 
which always prompts their will to utter the truth 
and avoid falsehood, is in God the Divine Will or 



The True God 67 

Essence, which by its nature has an infinite pro- 
pensity to what is true and an infinite horror of 
what is false. 

God is called the First and Highest Truth or 
Veracity because the virtue of truthfulness or 
veracity in men and angels is a slight participa- 
tion in His infinite truth. Hence His 
truthfulness is the first and highest rule 
of belief. On it ultimately our faith is 
based. We believe the Church, because it 
is governed and taught by the Holy Ghost or God 
Himself; but we believe in God because He is the 
First Truth. We do not believe the First Truth, 
because of any extrinsic reason, but because of 
Itself. For by Itself and solely by Itself, It has a 
right to exact from us an unqualified and un- 
limited faith. 

This attribute supposes two others on which in 
a certain manner it is based, namely the infinite 
Goodness and the infinite Wisdom of God. His 
Goodness is the reason of His absolute inability 
to deceive ; and His Wisdom is the reason of the 
absolute impossibility of His being deceived. 

Fourth. God is called Truthful in His Prom- 
ises, which is an other word for Fidelity. 

Fidelity in men and angels is a virtue that in- 
clines to the keeping of promises, because of the 
obligation contracted. But in God Fidelity is 



68 Names of God 

the divine Essence or Will considered in its di- 
vine propensity to fidelity. Hence as God is His 
own Essence, His own love, His own knowledge, 
so also He is His own Fidelity. He is the infinite 
propensity to fulfil what He has promised. And 
because by Jesus Christ He fulfils all that He has 
promised to the human race, Christ is frequently 
called in Holy Scripture Truth, just as He is 
called Mercy, in as much as God by Him has 
shown all His mercy and made its effects felt by 
mankind. 

Finally God is called the First Truth because 
from Him all fidelity in men and angels descends 
as a sort of participation in the infinite fidelity of 
God. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

The Blessed God. 

I Tim. vi; Apoc. xx. 

HT HE formal beatitude of the rational nature 
■ both of men and angels consists in the clear 
vision of God, our supreme good, and in the love 
and fruition of God. Hence the formal beatitude 
of God consists in the clear vision of Himself, the 
love of Himself, and the enjoyment of Himself. 
For just as He is the greatest good for men and 
angels, so He is for Himself. Nor can we 
imagine any greater or more excellent good than 
Himself. In the vision and enjoyment of Him- 
self consists His beatitude. The Divine Essence 
is so great a good that the sole vision of it, the 
enjoyment and taste of its sweetness render Him 
happy, as the love of Himself renders Him just 
and holy. 

Hence God is called Blessed, first, because He 
clearly sees and loves Himself and is in the en- 
joyment of Himself as His own supreme good. 
And as He beholds and loves Himself and is in 
the enjoyment of Himself in a comprehensive and 
infinite manner, it follows necessarily that He is_ 
infinitely blessed and that His formal beatitude 
is infinite. For these three acts are perfectly 
equal to their infinite object. 

69 



70 Names of God 

Second. He is called Blessed because He is so 
by His Essence, just as He is infinitely holy by 
His Essence. More than that; He is His own 
formal beatitude; for He is His own vision, His 
own love, His own joy, His own delight. More- 
over all this is not in Him by way of accidents or 
vital acts elicited by the power of the light of 
glory in His understanding or will, as happens 
to men or angels, but it is a simple self-subsisting 
form which is His Essence. This is a marvel 
worthy of our profoundest admiration. 

Third. God is called Blessed because He is 
not only His own formal, but His His own ob- 
jective beatitude, by the vision and enjoyment of 
which He and all the saints are happy. He is 
not only His own vision, His own love, His own 
joy, but also His own Essence and His own su- 
preme good and object in which is all good, by 
the sight and enjoyment of which He is Himself 
blessed and by which the saints are made partici- 
pants in His beatitude. Hence God both on the 
part of the act (if I may so speak), and on the 
part of the object is happy of Himself and He is 
so because of nothing else. He is thus simul- 
taneously His own formal and His own objective 
beatitude. 

Fourth. He is called Blessed as the author of 
all blessedness in angels and in men; for He has 



The Blessed God 71 

created them in His own image and likeness so 
as to make them share in His happiness. He 
has moreover infused into them the gifts of grace 
by means of which they have the power to merit 
this beatitude and to make themselves worthy of 
it. 

Finally to those who persevere in the state of 
grace He gives after their death the light of 
glory, that they may see Him clearly and rejoice 
in His sweetness and beauty. In those acts con- 
sists the essence of our beatitude. Hence since all 
blessedness descends from Him and is only a par- 
ticipation in His beatitude, He must be blessed in 
a most infinitely excellent manner. 



CHAPTER XXVI. 

God, the First Beginning of All Things. 

f\ OD is called the First Beginning of all 
creatures and of each in particular. For 
no matter on how many causes they may depend, 
as we see in the case of plants, animals and the 
works of art, they all ultimately depend on Him 
as the First of all causes. 

He is called The First Beginning, first, because 
He is the most ancient beginning. There were 
none prior to Him; none were with Him from 
eternity. On the contrary whatever causes or 
beginnings of things there may have been they 
were infinitely remote from Him in point of time. 

Second. He is the first in dignity, because He 
is the highest, and there can be no being above 
Him from whom He could receive the power of 
being the cause of all that is created. No one 
gave Him the power of creating; no one indicated 
the means to be employed ; no one revealed to him 
the idea ; no one persuaded Him to draw the uni- 
verse from nothing ; no one proposed to Him that 
object ; no one aided Him ; no one cooperated with 
Him. He had all that of Himself; and by Him- 
self He has made all things. He has of Himself 
72 



God, the First Beginning of All Things 73 

infinite power to create outside of Himself and 
beneath Himself, whatever being He may wish. 
Of Himself He possesses all art, and all wisdom, 
and the idea of every imaginable work. Of 
Himself He possesses all the plans of works and 
all the inclination to execute them. He is Him- 
self the end of every work. He alone without the 
cooperation of any one, without any one to 
furnish the material, and without the aid of in- 
struments created all things, made all things. 

Third. He is called The First Beginning, be- 
cause He is the beginning of all beginnings, the 
cause of all causes, and He is such under a three- 
fold aspect: as the efficient cause, as the final 
cause, as the ideal cause or exemplar. Although 
there are five kinds of causes : the material, the 
formal, the efficient, the ideal and the final, never- 
theless He is in the threefold manner just ex- 
plained, the cause and principle of all. 

In effect it is from Him that the matter of 
corporeal things receives its species, its character, 
its proportion, its order and its aptitude for union 
with the form, from both of which the resulting 
component is made. 1 In the same way it is from 



1 In the Scholastic system all material beings are viewed as the 
product of two concreated constituent factors, the one passive 
and recipient, the other active and determining. The first is 
styled the matter, the second the form, and both are called sub- 
stantial principles in as much as by their essence they constitute 
one complete substantial being. — Maker. Psychol. 



74 Names of God 

His wisdom and His power that every form of 
corporeal things receives its species, and the 
order essential to matter which is disposed in a 
definite manner so as to be substantially united to 
it. All proportion and agreement, the reciprocal 
attraction, the mutual combination of matter and 
form, of objects and their accidents, of sub- 
stances and their ornaments have been planned, 
instituted, ordered and supplied with all their 
powers by Him. 

Fourth. The same is true of every efficient 
cause and of every operative power in angels, 
men, animals, plants and the rest. God is the 
author of their energies. He made and com- 
municated these powers. From Him they derive 
their character, order and mode of being. 

Fifth. It is from God that every ideal cause, 
every concept and every art of the artificer is 
derived; for He is the author of every intelli- 
gence, and of every intellectual illumination and 
conception. 

Sixth. He is the author of every final cause. 
The reason is that every purpose intended by men 
or angels (and they alone work for a purpose) 
has from Him the goodness, attractiveness, ad- 
vantage and excellence that make such purpose 
desirable. So also the ends for which all other 
creatures strive have been assigned by Him. 



God, the First Beginning of All Things 75 

Hence He is the beginning of all beginnings and 
is superior to all beginnings. He is the cause of 
every cause and is superior to every cause. 
Hence St. Denis frequently calls Him the Hyper- 
ar chios Archi, by which is meant that God is not 
only the beginning of all beginnings but that His 
manner of operation is far higher than, and ab- 
solutely independent of any other beginning. 

Hence as St. Paul says (Ep. ad Rom.) "Of 
Him, and by Him and in Him are all things." 
Of Him because it is of Himself, as the origin 
and root-idea of all things that He has conceived 
them in His mind from all eternity. By Him be- 
cause He alone without any concurrence created 
all things in time. In Him, or as the Greek has 
it, for Him, because He is* the end of all things. 
They have been created for His glory. 



CHAPTER XXVII. 
God the Creator. 

St. Thos. I p. qq. 65, 66. 

GOD is called Creator because by His infinite 
wisdom and from all eternity, He conceived 
most distinctly, and formed in His mind with 
infinite clearness an infinity of worlds with all 
their splendor and with all that belongs to each 
of them. Among those infinite worlds present 
to His mind He freely chose the present one in 
preference to all the others, and from all eternity 
firmly resolved to create it, form it, arrange it 
and perfect it along with the angels, the two 
authors of the human race and all its marvellous 
mechanism. Moreover He decreed to create it 
after an infinity of ages at a certain epoch of 
time, in the space of six days, and to fix it in a 
definite place in immensity, having previously 
conceived, designed and determined most dis- 
tinctly and immutably, its measures, its forms, 
its forces and its divisions. 

Second. He is called Creator because by the 
power of His eternal decree, operating after in- 
finite ages, at a determined point of time and 
space, He with sovereign power and by His word 
76 



God the Creator 77 

alone created it from nothing and infinitely be- 
neath Himself. After having created it, He by 
His ever admirable concurrence marvellously 
continues to keep it fixedly in the same space and 
state and nature for all eternity. Moreover this 
universal concurrence is so powerful that nothing 
can perish unless He withdraws His hand. That 
He never does, except when some other cause ex- 
acts it, as for example, when on account of sin, 
He no longer concurs in conserving the gift of 
habitual grace. Thus also He withdraws this 
influence when as in the lives of plants and ani- 
mals the conditions necessary for existence cease 
according to the natural laws. 

There are many things to be admired in this 
work of the Creator. First, because the decree 
by which the world was made preceded the ex- 
ecution of it by an infinite period, and it was only 
after infinite ages that the actual creation of the 
world took place. Secondly, because although 
God created the world at a determined point of 
space and time, He could have created it any 
other moment and after any stretch in the infinity 
of space. Thirdly because during all that pro- 
digious work there was no change in God. 
Fourthly because all these numberless, varied, 
firm, solid, massive and enduring things were in 
an instant drawn from nothing. 



78 Names of God 

It should be remarked that creation can be 
considered in two ways: First as an ascent, or 
as a passage of the creature from non-being to 
being, as if in its preceding state it had been 
hidden away in nothingness, and was then drawn 
out by the omnipotence of its Maker into being. 
Secondly as a descent or an emanation of the 
creature from the omnipotence of the Creator, 
where before it had been eminently contained as 
in its root and in its idea, passing thence into 
formal and actual being; as the light is said to 
emanate from the sun ; heat from fire ; the visible 
species from objects, the picture from the art of 
the painter, etc. I omit many other things which 
may easily present themselves to the mind that 
attentively considers the works of God. 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

God the Conservator. 

f~* OD is called the Conservator, first, because 
He gives to all creatures and to each, ac- 
cording to its capacity and degree, all the help 
required to preserve and defend itself from death 
and from all that may harm it. We see this 
power in men and even in the lowest animals. 
For the Creator has endowed them with an in- 
stinct which prompts them to procure what is 
helpful and to shun what is harmful. The same 
thing is observable in plants and inanimate things 
and even in the elements, although in the last 
named it is not so perceptible. 

He is called the Conservator of the world 
because by an incessant and a substantific influ- 
ence He acts on all creatures in such a way 
to preserve their nature. Without such influence 
no matter how great and firm and solid a thing 
may appear it would be extinguished instantly 
and lapse into its original nothingness. For all 
created things, even the angels and the celestial 
court are but terms of the divine action and of 
the divine influence acting upon those things, not 
extrinsically but intrinsically, as the light diffused 

79 



80 Names of God 

in the world is the term of the illumination or 
operation of the sun. Hence it follows 
that nothing has solidity or permanency ex- 
cept by the divine concurrence ; and that depends 
on the free will of God whereby He does or does 
not will to continue this concurrence. Hence no 
existing creature can perish as long as God has 
resolved to lend His concurrence, and no external 
power can cause it to perish. 

This influence or concurrence of God is noth- 
ing else than a continuation of the creative act 
or an operation equivalent to creation. Hence 
as the Fathers say: "There is need of no less a 
power to sustain the world and to prevent it from 
falling into naught, than there was to make it 
pass from non-being into being." 

Third. God is called Conservator because He 
has resolved to preserve the world, the angels and 
men, by continuing unchangeably this substan- 
tific concurrence for all eternity. 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Divine Providence. 

St. Thos. I p. q. 22. 

\Y/E say that God extends His providence to 
* * and watches over all creatures, first, be- 
cause by His Providence all beings exist in their 
species and their individual nature, with all their 
adornments, all their properties and all their 
functions. For in the whole of nature there is 
not one being to which He has not given all that 
it is; its figure, its form, its beauty, to enable it 
to appear with what is suitable for its state. 
There is none to which He has not given also its 
particular character, its inclinations, its powers, 
its instruments or organs, all of which are in ab- 
solute harmony with the functions they are to 
fulfil. "He hath disposed all things with 
measure, number and weight." (Wis. i.) 

This is clearly seen not only in the principal 
parts of the universe, as in the firmament, the 
stars, the sun, the moon, but also in the organism 
of the vilest worms of the earth and in their 
various segments, and in the plants and flowers. 

Second. God's Providence extends to every- 

81 



82 Names of God 

thing because in the whole range of nature and 
throughout the universe, nothing can be done 
that God has not previously considered most ex- 
actly in the infinite light of His wisdom, and has 
not, so to speak, deliberated upon as to the fitness 
or the propriety of permitting it or at least of 
not preventing it. This divine consideration and 
deliberation precedes every decree both as to what 
is to be done and what is to be permitted in con- 
nection with every creature in particular. For 
the causes of all things that occur are thus held 
by His hand, so that without His will nothing 
can escape His control or issue in a single act. 
Hence it follows that nothing can be done with- 
out the Providence of God. 

Third. Another manifestation of His Provi- 
dence is seen in the fact that although as a con- 
sequence of sin and free will, He seems to permit 
countless disorders chiefly in human affairs, yet 
He permits nothing except for a supreme 
reason, and if we may so express ourselves, with- 
out previous deliberation. Moreover what ap- 
pears to be disorder will be cited before His 
tribunal and judged according to the laws of 
rigid justice, and by His decree it will be made 
to reenter into the most perfect and exquisite 
order. 

Fourth and finally, all the order that exists 



Divine Providence 83 

either in the structure of the universe, or the or- 
ganism of plants- and animals, or in the acts of 
creatures, or in the means they employ to ac- 
complish the purpose of their existence — and this 
is true of all creatures, spiritual as well as cor- 
poreal — has been made and established by the 
hand of God, and is the work of His Divine 
Providence. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

God the Ruler of the World. 

\Y7 E call God the Ruler of the World, first, be- 
* * cause after creating the world, He pre- 
serves, moves and governs it. He governs all 
the various beings contained therein and shapes 
everything in conformity with the individual 
natures of each. He cooperates with and guides 
each of them in their natural functions, and by 
the instrumentality of the heavenly.bodies in their 
incessant changes maintains the regular course 
of the births and deaths of the lower creation. 

Second. He directs all rational nature both 
human and angelic to its proper end, by the most 
suitable internal and external means such as laws 
and examples, lights flashed on the mind and af- 
fections enkindled in the heart, and also by 
threats and promises, happiness and suffering 
and so on. And although at times He allows 
the evil spirit some power to tempt and harass 
us, it is to exercise us in virtue and to afford us 
an occasion of obtaining greater merit. He 
nevertheless holds him in check so that he can do 
little against us if we wish to resist. 

Third. He has given to all of us from the be- 
84 



God the Ruler of the World 85 

ginning the most sufficient help for our salvation ; 
and even after we sin, He gives what is abun- 
dantly sufficient to repair the ruin that has been 
wrought. So that on His part there is no reason 
why all should not be saved. 

Fourth. He will one day render to every one 
according to his works, and will do so in the sight 
of all rational creatures, in the General Judgment 
of the whole world, in order that the equity and 
benignity of His rule and of the Judgment itself 
may be made clearly manifest to all. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 
The Divine Master. 

Dionys. c. 12. 

£10D is called the Master of All, first 
because all things are essentially His. 
They are the works of His hands ; have been con- 
ceived by His wisdom, drawn from nothing by 
His power, and brought into being to reveal His 
glory. He is the Master of All because He can 
dispose of all as He wishes, for all things depend 
at every moment on a sign of His free will. Nor 
has He vouchsafed to bestow this lordship upon 
any other ; and hence He has incomparably more 
right and power over the whole universe, over all 
the angels and men, than let us say, a master over 
his horse, a potter over his vase, or a man over 
his free will. For the owner of the horse did not 
make the animal, nor the potter the clay, nor the 
fire, nor the skill that fashions the vessel, nor has 
man given himself the power to exercise his free- 
dom of will. But God has of Himself all that is 
needed to obtain and produce all that He wishes, 
whereas creatures are but the exterior term of 
His interior act. Hence His dominion is infinite 
86 



The Divine Master 87 

and incommunicable to creatures, and no creature 
can exist outside of that dominion, or belong to 
himself, for he depends essentially on God as his 
first beginning and last end. 

Second. God is not only Master of all things 
that are, but of those that are not; namely of all 
possible things. He is Master of the infinity of 
worlds, of the infinity of men, of the infinity of 
angels that He can create. All the world of the 
possibles is for ever present to Him in all the im- 
mensity of its possible species. He sees them as 
clearly in His mind as if they had in reality 
passed into existence. He sees each in its own 
nature and, at one sign of His will, He could 
bring about that in obedience to His command 
they would pass forthwith from nothing and ap- 
pear before Him. "For He calleth the things 
which are not as those that are." (Rom. iv; 
Wis. ii). Hence all things are equally in His 
power and He can do as He pleases with all 
possible and actual worlds. It is as if there were 
a king so powerful as to be obeyed not only by 
the subjects he actually has, but those also he 
would have if the people of every part of the 
world were ready to serve Him, at the least sign 
he might make. Such a one would be rightly 
called the King of the universe. Such is God 
with regard to all possible worlds. 



88 Names of God 

Third. God is called The Master of All, 
because all dominion and all right both of 
property and jurisdiction in angels and in men 
emanate from Him. From Him all right of do- 
minion is derived, because it has its foundation 
in rational nature, and the liberty of free will. 
From Him also come all things that can be 
possessed; and if He did not at every moment 
preserve the riches and properties which men 
possess, sudden and absolute poverty would 
everywhere ensue. From Him also comes all 
real right to acquire or hold, or freedom to dis- 
pose of anything whatever. That is what is 
meant by the right of dominion. 

God is called also The Lord of Lords, not only 
because all dominion both of property and juris- 
diction emanates from Him, but also because all 
the lords and rulers of the earth and all the rich 
men of the world are subject to Him as His 
slaves, and incomparably more than slaves; for 
He has as much right over all kings and lords and 
over all that is subject to them, as He has over 
the meanest worm that crawls. This will appear 
especially on the Day of Judgment when number- 
less kings and lords will be beneath His feet, as 
it were annihilated in the dust. 

It is in the same manner and for the same 
reason that He is called The King of Kings and 
The Lord of Lords. 



The Divine Master 89 

He bears also the name of The King of the 
Ages, because His Kingdom will exist and 
flourish for all ages, and will never suffer dis- 
aster, or detriment, or diminution. It will last 
for all eternity, ever strong and triumphant; in 
sovereign happiness and in a sovereign affluence 
of all good according to the words of the Royal 
Prophet: "Thy Kingdom is a Kingdom of all 
ages." (Ps. cxliv) ; whereas all other kingdoms 
will soon end with all their princes and all their 
possessions. 

God is called the Saint of Saints or the Holy 
of Holies because all holiness and all purity both 
in men and angels is derived from Him, and be- 
cause His holiness surpasses infinitely the holi- 
ness of all of them taken together, since, as we 
have explained in Chapter XVII, He is infinitely 
more pure, more elevated and more enduring 
than all. 

He is called the God of Gods because all deifi- 
cation of the just and blessed comes from Him. 
The supreme perfection of rational nature con- 
sists in its resemblance to God. St. Denis calls 
it deification, and for that reason the blessed are 
spoken of as deified, as gods, as Sons of God, 
in the sense that Scripture intends. For if Holy 
Scripture calls earthly kings and rulers, gods, 
because men here below venerate them as gods, 



90 Names of God 

as we see in Psalm lxxxi and Jno. x, for the 
reason that they share in God's judicial power, 
with much greater reason may we give the name 
of gods to saints ; not only because they will be as- 
sociated with Jesus Christ in judging the world, 
but because they are deified and made like unto 
God, to such a degree that it is impossible to 
have the resemblance greater than it is. Hence 
Holy Scripture in the version of the Septuagint 
often speaks of the angels as gods, and the Royal 
Prophet in Psalm xlvi refers to the Apostles when 
he says : "the gods of the earth have been mar- 
vellously exalted;" and in Genesis c. iii the ser- 
pent said: "you will be like unto gods" that is 
like the deified and glorious angels, though I am 
aware of course that this passage is otherwise 
explained. However we must bear in mind that 
in ordinary language it would be wrong to call 
the inhabitants of heaven gods. They should 
be spoken of as saints and blessed, so as to avoid 
the error of the pagans who had many gods to 
whom by the most stupid of errors they accorded 
the worship which is due only to the -Divinity. 



CHAPTER XXXII. 

God the Redeemer. 

GOD is called the Redeemer, first, because 
when we were lost and made slaves of 
Satan, and condemned to eternal damnation, He 
alone moved by a tender compassion for us, re- 
deemed us. From slaves of the devil He made 
us children of God, and from the justly merited 
punishment of eternal damnation He transferred 
us to the right of a celestial inheritance. And 
this He did not accomplish in a manner that was 
without difficulty; not by pronouncing a few 
words as in creating the world, but with infinite 
cost and labor ; going to the extent of paying as 
the price of our purchase His own blood and life, 
after He had suffered countless sorrows and in- 
effable afflictions. 

Second. He is called Redeemer because He 
has not merely purchased us from slavery, but 
paid for us an infinite ransom, opening for us 
at the same time a perennial and inexhaustible 
fountain of reconciliation so that we could be 
reconciled to God and might be able to satisfy 
divine justice not only once, but ten times, a hun- 
dred times, a thousand times, as often in fact as 

91 



92 Names of God 

we might have the misfortune of falling into sin. 
For seeing the great weakness of human nature 
it would have been too little to have been able to 
be reconciled only once with God. Hence in His 
infinite goodness, He wished that it should al- 
ways be in our power to repeat this reconciliation 
by genuine repentance. Among men or among 
princes there is no example of redemption such 
as that. His blood is the all sufficing price that 
could obtain from divine justice infinite reconcilia- 
tions even of infinite worlds were they to commit 
infinite sins no matter how enormous such sins 
might be. Hence the title of Redeemer belongs 
to Jesus Christ in a degree of excellence which is 
incommunicable to any mere creature. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

The Light of the World. 

Ps. xvii ; John i ; Dionys. 4. 

/^ OD is called the Light of the World, because, 
^ first, all light, material as well as spiritual, 
comes from Him. He first poured out on the 
material world which was previously buried in 
darkness, a most welcome and abundant light 
which is the joy of all creatures. He has like- 
wise filled all intelligences with the light of 
natural knowledge. 

Second. God is called the Light because all 
supernatural doctrine, all knowledge and all en- 
lightenment by which all men and all angels are 
prepared for and elevated to salvation, descends 
through His most benignant revelation. He 
alone can reveal to us the counsel and decrees, 
by which He resolved from all eternity to make 
us participate in His glory, just as He alone can 
reveal to us the ways and the means by which we 
may attain it. Without this light we should all 
be in darkness, neither knowing the way nor the 
end. 

Third. He is called the Light because He il- 
lumines all those who are in the darkness of af- 
fliction and sorrow, as soon as they have recourse 

93 



94 Names of God 

to Him as their Refuge. He consoles them by' the 
knowledge of heavenly things, as the Psalmist 
tells us: "Come ye to Him and be enlightened 
and your faces shall not be confounded." (Ps. 
xxxiii.) 

Fourth. He is the Light because the light of 
glory which penetrates and brightens the soul 
and by the help of which it sees God clearly as He 
is in Himself and all creatures in God and be- 
neath God, is derived from Him, its only source. 
Thus by the light of glory all creation will be ob- 
jectively illumined because all the elements and 
objects which are in creation will be placed be- 
fore the gaze of the blessed in the greatest clear- 
ness, and they will seem as if penetrated and 
resplendent with the light of glory. 

Again, God is called the Light, first, because 
He is the source of all corporeal and spiritual 
light and of all knowledge. For all knowledge is 
a light which illumines simultaneously both the 
mind and the object. The mind is the subject 
that receives the light of knowledge and the ob- 
ject which was previously in darkness is mani- 
fested to the mind by the knowledge illumining 
the mind. 

Second. Because He is Himself the clearest, 
the most certain and the securest knowledge. 
That knowledge is free from ignorance or ob- 



The Light of the World 95 

scurity, both with regard to Himself and all in- 
telligible things actual or possible as it is written : 
"God is light and in Him there is no darkness." 
(I John i.) It follows then that the whole world 
of possibles is in the greatest clearness before 
Him because it is illumined by the infinite light 
of His knowledge. 

Third. The name of Light is given to God 
because He is infinitely superior to all created 
light that is or can be, and He contains eminently 
in Himself all light. It is from Him that all light 
descends as a feeble participation in His infinite 
light. 

Finally, Scripture tells us that He dwells in 
light inaccessible, because by knowledge, love and 
possession He dwells in Himself and He is es- 
sentially Light Inaccessible which no creature by 
the mere force of nature can ever attain to even 
in thought. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

God the Sanctifier. 

/^l OD is called the Sanctifier, first, because all 
the sanctity of men and angels is from Him. 
It is by the communication of His sanctity that 
He assimiliates them all to Himself and makes 
them godlike. 

Second. He is called the Sanctifier, because 
He alone can pardon the offenses committed 
against His infinite majesty. He alone can 
purify souls from sin, and sanctify them. He 
alone can illumine them by supernatural knowl- 
edge and infuse in them supernatural charity. 
He alone can communicate the Holy Spirit along 
with the gift of charity. For the Holy Spirit is 
given at the same time as charity in order to 
sanctify souls by His^presence, to protect them by 
His power, and to illumine and urge them to all 
manner of good in order that He Himself and by 
Himself may be their possession forever, and that 
so they may be forever happy. 

Third. God is called the Sanctifier because He 
alone elevates to a supreme and consummate 
96 



God the SanctiHer 97 

sanctity all those who endeavor to sanctify them- 
by means of which they know Him and love Him 
in the sublimest manner. For the most exalted, 
intrinsic and real sanctity consists in the most ex- 
alted knowledge and enjoyment of God. 



CHAPTER XXXV. 

God Our Refuge. 

f~* OD is called our Refuge, first, because in all 
our afflictions both of body and soul, in all 
our temptations, in all our perils, in all our 
anguish and in all our necessities, when we can 
hope for nothing from any source, we have in 
Him an assured refuge, and can turn to Him by 
prayer and implore His help. Those who have 
recourse to Him and who invoke Him with firm 
hope and confidence He does not reject no matter 
what their sins may be; even if they have often 
merited hell. He always hears them, and either 
grants what they ask or bestows something in- 
comparably more precious and useful for their 
salvation. 

Second. God is called our Refuge, because 
when all creatures desert us or can no longer 
help us, He never abandons us but is always near 
us, is in us, outside of us, and around us, on all 
sides of us, and in all parts ever ready to help, 
to aid, to console and to save. Thus we can 
rightly say with David : "Our God is our refuge 
and strength, a helper in trouble which have 
found us exceedingly. Therefore we will not 
98 



God Our Refuge 99 

fear when the earth shall be troubled and the 
mountains shall be removed into the heart of the 
sea." (Ps. xlv.) And again: "The Lord is 
my light and my salvation. The Lord is the pro- 
tector of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?" 
And further on: "My father and mother have 
left me; but the Lord hath taken me up." 
(Ps. xxvi.) 

Third. God is likewise the especial Refuge of 
all the just who are weary of the world, who long 
to flee from its deceits, its malice and its over- 
whelmingly cruel sufferings, and who sigh with 
all the ardor of their hearts for God the source 
of life and the abyss of all good in whom alone 
they will find perfect rest. For He is the last 
and supreme end of all their desires, and it is in 
Him that all should with the whole energy of 
their souls seek refuge, if they wish to gain the 
beatific repose of heaven. 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 
God the Tender Father. 

/^l OD is like a tender Father who lifts us up 
when we fall and takes us in His arms; 
because when the whole human race was lost and 
had incurred the penalty of eternal damnation, 
He alone had compassion on us and began with 
the greatest tenderness to redeem us and to re- 
store us to our original condition in order to ac- 
complish our salvation, according to the words of 
St. Luke. "He hath received Israel His servant, 
being mindful of His mercy/' (Luke ii.) 

Second. God shows Himself a tender Father, 
because He most willingly receives even His 
enemies who have grievously offended Him, as 
soon as they wish to return to Him. He pardons 
all their sins, reestablishes them in their former 
condition, adopts them anew as His children and 
restores them their right to the celestial inheri- 
tance which they had forfeited. He is like the 
father of the prodigal who received his son with 
great joy after all the sins with which he had de- 
filed himself and after wasting his substance in 
riotous living. 
100 



God the Tender Father 101 

Third. God shows Himself to be a tender 
Father, because He receives benignly all those 
who are plunged in affliction when they have re- 
course to Him. He consoles them and comes to 
their assistance at the opportune moment accord- 
ing to the word of Holy Scripture: "Know ye 
that no one who hath hoped in the Lord hath 
been confounded." (Eccl. ii.) And the Lord 
Himself hath said: "Come to Me all that labor 
and are burdened and I will refresh you." 
(Matth. ii.) 

Fourth. God shows Himself a tender Father 
because He takes under His special protection all 
those who have consecrated themselves to His 
service. He exercises a paternal care over them ; 
He enlightens them and forms them to be His 
children, and raises them to great perfection to 
make them as far as possible like to Himself in 
their thoughts, their affections, their actions and 
He endows them with the proper dispositions to 
obtain their celestial inheritance. 

Fifth. God finally shows His paternal love 
by receiving the just into His kingdom when they 
die, and admitting them to a blissful participa- 
tion in His glory and in every good as the Royal 
Prophet says. "Receive me according to Thy 
word and I shall live, and suffer not that I shall 
be confounded in my hope." (Ps. cxviii.) 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 
God Our Protector. 



Wis. xi, 25, 26 



f* OD is called our Protector in general be- 
cause He keeps every creature in its 
species, in its integrity, and in its natural state. 
As far as its condition requires, He defends it 
from everything harmful, but He is especially a 
Protector with regard to mankind, which is ex- 
posed to an infinity of dangers and subject to 
countless tribulations. 

First. Because He preserves us from number- 
less sins into which each of us would fall if His 
benign protection did not prevent it. For on ac- 
count of the extreme feebleness of our nature and 
our inclination to evil, there is no kind of sin into 
which we should not have been easily drawn by 
the devices and power of the devil ; and we should 
have remained in them, if God in His kindness 
and in the most marvellous way had not encom- 
passed us with His protection. Hence St. Paul 
says. "Let no one glory in himself" (II Cor. 
ch. x), as if he had avoided sin by his own care. 
On the contrary we should humiliate ourselves 
before God and recognize both our own weakness 
102 



God Our Protector 103 

and God's goodness, and thank Him no less for 
the sins we have not committed than for the bene- 
fits we have received. 

Second. Because just as He has preserved us 
from an infinity of sins into which otherwise we 
should have fallen, so He has prevented us from 
numberless dangers of incurring damnation into 
which we would have rushed a thousand times 
had not His clemency warded them off. For 
whoever is in a state of mortal sin deserves the 
eternal fire of hell, and would be instantly cast 
into it by the demons, if God permitted it, 
Hence we must conclude that when God preserves 
us from sin, He preserves us mediately from 
eternal damnation. 

Third. Because He not only preserves us in- 
directly but immediately and directly whenever 
we are in a state of mortal sin. For then we are 
really at the gates of hell, and nothing more 
would be neded for eternal damnation did not 
God arrest His just anger which is seeking to 
burst upon us, and did He not keep back the 
demons who are eager to seize upon us ; or finally 
— and this is often the case — did He not avert 
from us what might deprive us of life. In that 
way He shields and preserves us from damnation, 
so as to give us time to do penance and work out 
our salvation. 



104 Names of God 

Fourth. Not only does He preserve us from 
sins and from hell, but from numberless other 
misfortunes, afflictions, adversities, etc., into 
which without His protecting hand we should 
have fallen and in which we would have com- 
mitted sins that would have ultimately dragged 
us to hell. For He knows with absolute cer- 
tainty what would be the result of each one of 
those trials, viz. which ones would lead to heaven 
and which to hell. So in His tender love for us, 
He often diverts from us what He forsees would 
end in the loss of our soul. For all this we ought 
to thank Him every day of our lives. 

Fifth. We call Him our Protector because 
He protects the just with special care, as His 
children and the heirs of His Kingdom, and es- 
pecially those who are consecrated to His ser- 
vice and His glory. To them He shows Himself 
as a special protector. For they are the precious 
pearls and diamonds in the treasure house of the 
Lord. "He guards them as the apple of His 
eye" (Ps. xvi and lxii.) that is to say, as those 
who are dearest to Him. He protects them "as 
the hen who gathereth the chickens under her 
wings" Matth. xxiii.) 

Sixth. God bears this name because He is 
also the protector of the blessed, in as much as 
He preserves them from every fall, from every 



God Our Protector 105 

sin, from all sadness, from error, from death, 
and from suffering both of soul and body. He 
does all this by keeping them in the light of His 
glory. For if He withdrew His concurrence, He 
would that moment cease to preserve them. If 
that light were extinguished in them they would 
cease to be happy. The old infirmity would be 
renewed in them, and they would fall again into 
their former misery and even be eternally lost. 
Hence the eternity of their happiness is founded 
on the eternal protection of God. 



CHAPTER XXXVIIL 
God Our Helper. 

/^ OD is called our Helper in general with 
^-* regard to all creatures. The reason is that 
all power of acting in any manner whatever, and 
also all created forces are dependent at every in- 
stant on Him, to such an extent that not a single 
act can be performed without His concurrence, 
His cooperation and His aid. Moreover to ac- 
cord such assistance is for Him most easy, for 
He is intimately present in all creatures and by 
His act and influence maintains them in their 
nature, their being and their power. 

God is especially our Helper because without 
special aid and assistance on His part: 

First. No one can rise from the state of sin 
and damnation and regain the state of the chil- 
dren of God. 

Second. No one can escape the snares of the 
enemy and overcome temptations. 

Third. No one can do anything that avails 
for eternal life. 

Fourth. No one can persevere in virtue to the 
end. In everything, we need God's especial help. 

Finally God makes the inhabitants of heaven 
106 



God Our Helper 107 

feel His help. For in the state of beatitude no 
one can see Him and love Him with beatific love, 
no one can taste His boundless sweetness, that 
is to say, enjoy Him, unless God assists by 
the special help which comes through the light of 
glory and the gift of charity. 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 

God Our Strength. 

/*** OD is called our Strength, first, because by 
**-* His help we are raised from the state of 
sin and damnation to that of grace and divine 
sonship. 

Second. Because by His help we overcome 
our enemies who are very powerful and very de- 
ceitful, and we are able to defeat all the machina- 
tions they employ against us in their efforts to 
compass our ruin. 

Third. Because by His grace, martyrdom is 
undergone even by virgins and children, all the 
cruelty of tyrants defied, and all the pleasures of 
the world despised. 

Fourth. Because by His help perseverance in 
the most difficult undertakings is granted us. 

Fifth. Because by His help we reach heaven 
and gain eternal life. 

Finally God is the Strength of the saints be- 
cause by His help they can do everything that is 
required for the glory of God and the salvation 
of souls. 
108 



CHAPTER XL. 

God Our Support. 

f OD is called Our Support : Firmamentum 
^-* Nostrum, first, because all the steadfastness 
of the just in the practice of virtue and all the 
constancy of those who persevere in well-doing, 
remaining unmoved as they do in spite of every 
temptation and trial, must be ascribed to Him. 

Second. Because all the perseverance of the 
inhabitants of heaven in their supremely happy 
state depends on Him and is maintained by His 
decree. 

Third. Because in general all the stability 
which spiritual and corporeal creatures display in 
their state, their work and their actions, depends 
on Him alone and on His uninterrupted con- 
currence. 



109 



CHAPTER XLI. 

God Our Life 



Dionys. c. 6. 



f^ OD is called Life in general, first, because 
^* He is the source of all life. For all life, 
the highest, the middlemost and the lowest, viz. 
the life of angels, of men, of animals and of 
plants comes from Him and is a relatively bright 
or obscure image or participation in the pri- 
mordial source of life. All life is contained in 
Him eminently, from all eternity and without 
limit. 

Second. God is called Life, because He is 
Himself infinite, boundless and eternal life, both 
formally and objectively. He is formally, be- 
cause the highest formal life consists in the clear 
vision, the love and the enjoyment of the Divine 
Being. Now He is Himself that vision, that 
love, and that enjoyment, and consequently He 
is for Himself His own formal life. He is more- 
over His own objective life, because He is His 
own vital essence, in the vision, love and enjoy- 
ment of which formal, eternal and blessed life 
consists. His life is infinite as are also His 
110 



God Oar Life 111 

vision, His love and the pleasure He derives from 
His essence, which is the infinite good in which 
infinite other possessions are contained. Hence 
just as He has all His wisdom, all His love, and 
all His joy from Himself, both on the part of the 
object and on that of the vital act — if I may use 
that expression — so under both heads and under 
this twofold aspect He has His life entirely from 
Himself. 

Third. God is called the Life of all things, 
even of the possibles according to their objective 
and intelligible being. For all things live in Him 
by the eternal thought or idea by which He con- 
ceives them and understands them. By means 
of those ideas and concepts, all things exist ob- 
jectively in the divine intelligence and shine there 
with as much light as if they had an external en- 
tity. In this manner they receive, so to speak, a 
vital and eternal entity which consists solely in 
being comprehended by the Divine Understand- 
ing; and because of this vital concept all things 
are said to live in God just as a work lives in the 
mind of the artificer. 

But God is especially called Our Life, first, be- 
cause when we were dead in our sins and con- 
demned to eternal death which is called the second 
death, He Himself delivered us from both by the 
death of His Son. and infused in us the life of 



112 Names of God 

grace by the help of which we have the power of 
attaining eternal life. 

Second. Because He does not vivify those who 
are dead in their sins, merely once or twice, but a 
hundred and a thousand times. Nay He is ready 
to give life to all sinners who have destroyed 
themselves by sin and who have extinguished in 
themselves the divine light, as soon as they have 
recourse to Him by genuine penance, and indeed 
every time after they have fallen into sin. If 
they return to Him with repentance in their soul, 
He will receive them as a father. He calls them 
in a thousand ways, He invites them, He attracts 
them, He compels them to return to the life which 
they have lost. 

Third. God is also called Our Life because, 
first, He is the cause of all the blessings of grace 
and glory, by which we shall live a life that is 
eternal, divine, sublime and most blessed; and 
second, because He is Himself the object of 
eternal life. In this clear vision and enjoyment 
of His Divine Being eternal life consists. 



CHAPTER XLII. 

God Our Hope. 

(^ OD is called Our Hope, first, because He is 
^^ the sovereign good we hope for ; which we 
desire more than and before anything else, and 
which our heart pants for as the ultimate term of 
all our hopes and desires. 

Second. God is called Our Hope, because it is 
He from whose infinite benignity, and wisdom, 
and power we hope for all things whether it be 
our last end or the means to attain it. None but 
He can give us those things. Therefore He is 
our hope both as the supreme good we hope for, 
and as the author and helper by whose aid we 
hope to attain it. 

Third. Jesus Christ is also called Our Hope 
because of His merits by which we cherish the 
confidence of obtaining both whatever is neces- 
sary for our salvation and also salvation itself. 
Without those merits there would be no hope of 
salvation. 

Finally God is called "the Hope of all the ends 
of the earth and of the sea afar off" because all 
nations expect what is good for them from God, 
and for that they pray. 

113 



CHAPTER XLIII. 
God Our Salvation. 

t^ OD is called Our Salvation, first, because He 
^^ delivered us from eternal death. Nay, as 
far as in Him lies, He delivers all men and pays 
a most abundant ransom for them; sufficient to 
redeem an infinite number of sinners and efface 
an infinity of sins. 

Second. God is called Our Salvation because 
He is the cause of all the gifts of grace and of all 
the good works by which we merit eternal sal- 
vation. The whole mechanism of this world is 
directed to that one end: our eternal salvation. 
All things are for the elect. 

Third. God is called our Salvation, because 
He is the author and source of all the gifts of 
glory in which eternal salvation formally consists, 
namely the vision and enjoyment of God. 

Finally, God justly bears that title because He 
is Himself the object of eternal salvation. On 
Him depend the whole essence of eternal life, its 
excellence, its sweetness and its endless duration. 
To see Him, to love Him, to enjoy Him is life 
eternal both for Himself and for all the saints. 
114 



CHAPTER XLIV. 

God Our Glory. 

f^ 1 OD is called Oar Glory, because He is its 
^^ cause and object. He is its cause because 
He is the cause of all those things in which we 
can in any way find glory in this life and also 
because He is the cause of that sublime and 
eternal glory of the world to come, and of all 
those divine gifts of which it will, so to speak, 
be the splendor. He is its object because He is 
Himself the object, the measure and the source 
of all glory, and of that most blessed state, in 
which all the blessed who behold, love, and en- 
joy Him will be deified and made like unto Him, 
resplendent with the glory of the Divinity. For 
the Divinity is so great a good, that to see, love 
and enjoy it is sovereign and eternal glory. 

Jesus Christ is also called Our Glory, because 
He is the meritorious cause of it ; for all glory is 
contained in His merits. They are its fruitful 
source and from those merits glory is diffused 
upon us. 

He may also be called Our Glory in as much as 
He is our head, and we are His members; just 
as the Blessed Virgin is called the glory of the 
heavenly, Judith the glory of the terrestrial 
Jerusalem. 

115 



CHAPTER XLV. 
God Our Peace. 

/^ OD is called Our Peace, first, in as much as 
^-* He is the author of all peace and of all 
rest of soul, for He is the author of every 
good thing that men desire and in the possession 
of which they rest. 

Second. Jesus Christ is called especially Our 
Peace because He is the author of that great re- 
conciliation with God and the justice of God 
which threatened us with eternal damnation. 
Moreover He has so reconciled us that not only 
has He averted the wrath of God but has changed 
us from the enemies that we were into children of 
God and heirs of His kingdom. 

Third. Jesus Christ is also called Our Peace, 
because He has thrown down the barrier that was 
raised between Jews and Gentiles. He has 
united them and as the Apostle says made them 
one people. (Eph. ii.) 

Fourth. Jesus Christ is moreover called Our 
Peace because spiritual consolation and peace 
comes to us from Him and it is by Him that we 
hope for eternal life and the blessed rest of our 
souls. 

116 



God Our Peace 117 

Fifth. Finally God is called Our Peace be- 
cause He is the fulfilment of all our desires, and 
the most perfect rest of our souls; beyond Him 
there is nothing else to be desired. All that our 
souls can desire in accordance with right reason, 
they will possess most fully in God for ever. 



CHAPTER XLVI. 

God Our Father. 

r^ OD is called Our Father, first, because He 
^-* has formed us to His image and likeness, 
and made us capable of His Divinity. Hence 
our soul by its understanding, memory and will 
possesses a certain grandeur and a boundless 
capacity by which it can attain to, and grasp ob- 
jects that are infinite. I say infinite because it 
can continue endlessly to comprehend new things, 
and in vast numbers so that there is never any 
limit to its powers in this respect. I say more; 
by the light of glory it can be so expanded 
that it can contain within itself even the immen- 
sity of God. In that we find a great resemblance 
to God as of a son or daughter to the father. 

Moreover as God can create things infinitely 
and place them in actual being, so the soul can 
create them infinitely by forming in itself intelli- 
gible entities or concepts of infinite things. By 
such concepts these things receive a certain ob- 
jective and intelligible being in the mind. 

All this suggests the immensity of the soul and 
its resemblance to God. He therefore may be 
justly called Our Father. He gave Himself this 
118 



God Our Father 119 

name in Deuteronomy xxxii, when He said: "Is 
He not Thy Father who has possessed thee, who 
has made thee, who has created thee?" 

Third. God is called Our Father in the Lord's 
Prayer and in may parts of the New Testament, 
on account of His gifts of grace, namely Faith, 
Hope and Charity, by which we are assimilated 
to Him in a noble and more perfect manner. 
But the crowning point of this resemblance is 
that the Holy Ghost is communicated to us with 
His gifts in order that He might abide in us and 
by His presence sanctify us, protect us, govern 
us, etc. In that manner God makes us His 
adopted children by communicating to us His 
nature and His Spirit by the gift of grace. To 
this gift He has in a certain fashion attached His 
Divine Spirit as we have more fully explained 
elsewhere. (Lib. xii, de Perfect., c. ii.) For son- 
ship arises from a certain communication of 
nature. 

Third. God is called Our Father because of 
the gifts of glory by which we are assimilated to 
Him in the highest and most perfect manner, to 
such a degree, in fact, that there can be no real 
and interior resemblance to God greater than it. 
By these gifts the divine filiation is completed in 
us. It began in some respect by creation, as in 
its root; it was elevated by justification to a 



120 Names of God 

higher and more supernatural degree, and rising 
still higher by glorification, which is the 
sublimest degree, it consummates in us the re- 
semblance to God and confers on us the pleni- 
tude of sonship. Because of this, all the blessed 
are called the children of God, and God is called 
the Father of the ages to come. 

Finally, God is called Our Father, because of 
His paternal providence which governs and acts 
with us. He is like a prince who treats his sub- 
jects as a father treats his children, and who is 
for that reason called the Father of his Country. 
"As a father hath compassion on his children, so 
hath the Lord compassion on them that fear 
Him." (Ps. cii). "Thy Providence, O Father, 
governeth all." (Wis. xiv.) 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

The Jealous God. 

Dionys. c. 4. 

JEALOUSY signifies sometimes the ardent love 
one has for another ; sometimes the indigna- 
tion one feels against what is hurtful to the object 
loved; and also refers to the effort made to 
avert danger and to destroy the aggressor. 

God is therefore called Jealous, first, because 
loving Himself and His glory with an infinite 
love, He is angry and profoundly indignant 
against those who despise Him by committing 
sin ; He is especially angry with those who trans- 
fer to idols the glory which is His. Hence we 
find in the 20th Chapter of Exodus, that after 
having forbidden His people to adore strange 
gods, He adds these words : "I am the Lord, thy 
God, mighty, jealous, visiting the iniquity of the 
fathers upon their children unto the third and 
fourth generation of those who hate Me." And 
in Chapter 34 we read : "Adore not any strange 
god. The Lord His name is Jealous; He is a 
Jealous God." 

Second. He takes the name of the Jealous 

121 



122 Names of God 

God, because He pursues with indignation and 
is intent upon removing whatever hinders the sal- 
vation of souls whom He loves as His spouses 
and His daughters and whose salvation He sov- 
ereignly desires. 

Third. Because as a Jealous Spouse, He is in- 
dignant against souls consecrated to His service 
if they love anything outside of Himself and for 
any other reason than for Him ; or if they delight 
in things of the world and do not apply them- 
selves to please Him in everything. 



CHAPTER XLVIlL 
God the Judge of the Living and the Dead. 

f* OD is called the Judge of All, first, because 
V* He judges all souls as soon as they leave the 
body. That judgment proceeds thus: At the 
first instant the soul is separated from the body, 
it beholds all the good and all the evil it has done. 
At the same moment it sees clearly whether it 
has merited punishment or reward. In the third 
place, the sentence of God who is the Judge is re- 
vealed to it, in consequence of which it is con- 
demned to eternal punishment or rewarded with 
eternal happiness. This sentence is pronounced 
by a divine act which forms a judgment in the 
soul such as would be uttered by the spoken word 
of an infallible judge. In that way God speaks 
to spiritual creatures and they know instan- 
taneously and with absolute certainty that this 
judgment comes from God and is His sentence. 
We have elsewhere explained at length how good 
and evil deeds are represented to the mind and 
how the soul sees itself worthy of chastisement 
or reward. (Lib. de Perfect., cxxii v. 137 et seq.) 
All that is done by the act which God by a special 
concurrence excites in the understanding. They 
are like a picture in the imagination, or acts of 

123 



124 Names of God 

perfect memory, by which we as it were contem- 
plate the past with all its attendant circumstances. 
Hence at that tribunal there will be no need of 
accuser or witnesses, because each one's con- 
science will accuse itself, and will testify most 
exactly to everything. It will be moreover in 
the presence of all the saints. Their vision of it 
will be most clear and they will serve as wit- 
nesses. It is believable also that the demons 
will have the same knowledge so that they may 
see how just is the judgment of God. For if on 
the day of General Judgment the actions of all 
are to be manifested to every one in order that 
the justice of God may appear, why, at the par- 
ticular judgment, should they not be manifested 
to the demons who share the punishment of the 
reprobate and who appear as executioners at that 
tribunal of divine justice. Hence when the sen- 
tence is pronounced which the demons under- 
stand, the condemned are dragged to the depths 
of hell, where they will be so closely guarded that 
they can neither escape, nor avoid suffering. 
This judgment takes only an instant, even as is 
credible, before the soul withdraws from the body. 
Moreover, as at every hour, many in the world 
are dying, the judgments of this tribunal are in 
some sort continuous. Nor is that difficult, for 
the Infinite Spirit of God which is intimately 



God the Judge of the Living and the Dead 125 

present in the souls of all, knows perfectly what 
they have done, can easily place the record before 
each soul that He judges, and write the sentence 
in its innermost depths. 

Second. God is called the Judge of All, be- 
cause by a public judgment at the end of the 
world, He will judge all men and all the demons 
of hell in presence of all the blessed angels. 
However this name, the Judge of All, is more 
properly ascribed to Christ who has been made 
by the Father, the Judge of that great day. He 
will exercise that judicial power according to 
His Humanity and in the most visible manner. 
Hence Daniel (c. vii) says: "I beheld therefore 
in the vision of the night and lo! one like the 
Son of Man came with clouds of heaven and He 
came even to the Ancient of Days and they pre- 
sented Him before Him. And He gave Him 
power and glory and a kingdom. (Dan. vii.) 

But it will be by the power of the Divinity that 
all men will rise again and find themselves all to- 
gether with the demons in the place where the 
Judgment will take place. 

It will also be by the power of God that all will 
remember their words and works, all of which 
will be seen by every one else, and each one will 
understand the justice of the sentence. 

Meantime while by the power of the Divinity 



126 Names of God 

all that passes unseen in the understanding of 
those who are to be judged, Christ, appearing in 
the clouds, according to His Humanity, will be 
surrounded by all the angels and in His supreme 
majesty will pronounce in a few words that will 
be heard by all, the sentence of the elect and of 
the reprobate, and at the same time by the power 
of the Divinity, He will cause to be heard in the 
soul of each the sentence that is in keeping with 
what it has deserved. 

We have treated this matter at greater length 
in Book xiii of The Divine Perfections. 



CHAPTER XLIX. 

God the Father of the World to Come. 

•T 1 HIS name applies to Christ in two ways : ac- 
* cording to His Humanity and according to 
His Divinity, and in as much as it is made to re- 
fer to His Divinity, it is applicable also to the 
Blessed Trinity. 

Christ is therefore called The Father of the 
World to Come, first, because He is the Author 
and Father of all the just and of all the children 
of God who were to live in the future under the 
New Testament. He is also the author of all 
the blessings connected with that covenant. 

For just as all the Jews according to the flesh 
are descended from Jacob by his twelve sons, the 
Patriarchs of the Old Law, so all the just who 
are the Jews and Israelites according to the 
spirit, are descended from Jesus Christ, the true 
Israel, by the twelve Apostles, the Patriarchs of 
the New Testament. From the point of view of 
the Old Testament the time of the New is called 
"the world to come" and was for ages the object 
of supreme and universal expectation. 

Second. Christ is called in a still higher sense 
Father of the World to Come because He is the 
Author and Father of all the blessed who after 
the resurrection are to reign forever in heaven. 

127 



128 Names of God 

From Him they received all their gifts; He de- 
livered them from eternal death; He merited for 
them all the means of salvation and all the grace 
that was needed for eternal life. He is therefore 
the author of all the glory of body and soul with 
which they shine in heaven. And He Himself 
will be resplendent among the saints like the sun 
among the stars. Because also His merits are 
for men the cause of that most blessed state and 
of all the glory with which they are to be crowned 
in heaven, He is justly called the Father of the 
World to Come. 

Third. He is also called the Father of the 
World to Come according to His Divinity. For it 
is His Divinity that was the cause of the ransom 
of the human race, and it is because of his Di- 
vinity that His merits have power to save us. 

Finally the Divinity is the principal efficient 
cause of all the gifts of grace and glory as well as 
of the state of glory which is ultimately secured. 
Hence it follows that Christ as God is the Father 
of the World to Come, not only in as much as that 
world embraces the blessed but also the angels. 
For the angels have all their glory and all their 
resemblance to the Divinity from Christ, not in 
as much as He is Man, but in as much as He is 
God. Thus all the children of God are deified 
by the gifts of His glory. 



CHAPTER L. 

God the Last End. 

TJ E is the First Beginning of all things and is 
likewise their Last End. For the First 
Beginning, acting and producing something out- 
side of itself, can have for its object and its last 
end the good of no other being but itself. 
The reason is because all other beings are infi- 
nitely beneath Him. Hence it follows that their 
good is not of a kind that God, as the First Be- 
ginning could rest in ultimately. Such a good is 
as if it were not. For all beings compared to Him 
are as nothing. He should therefore have in 
view as His last end, His own good; that is His 
own glory, because we cannot conceive any other 
greater good that could be the term of His gaze 
or His desire. For all the glory of God in as 
much as it is a divine possession ought to be in- 
finitely more estimable than any created good. 

There are two sorts of ends: the end which, 
and the end for which. The first is the good 
which one desires and for the acquisition of which 
one works; the second is the person whose good 
is therein desired. 

In this latter sense God is the Last End of all 

129 



130 Names of God 

things, because it is He for whose love and glory 
all things are created, and it is exclusively for 
His glory that He wishes and makes all things 
and permits all that He permits. According to 
the words of Scripture : "The Lord has made all 
things for Himself; the wicked also for the evil 
day/' (Prov. xvi, 4) God destines the wicked 
to eternal punishment in order to manifest the 
divine justice and glory. 

God is in a special manner in the two senses 
just explained the last end of rational creatures. 
For rational nature alone is capable of Him, and 
it alone has been created to enjoy God as its 
greatest good. There is nothing more excellent 
for it to desire. Hence it ought to desire and 
seek God as its sovereign good, in every possible 
way; and that, for its advantage, namely to en- 
joy Him and delight in His sweetness. 

God is also the Last End of rational creatures 
in the second sense spoken of above, because all 
the blessed must refer their beatitude and all they 
have to His glory. This they do incessantly ; for 
they esteem their beatitude, their glory and all 
they possess as more properly God's own than as 
belonging to themselves. 

Hence the blessed rejoice in their glory and 
their possessions in two ways; first, by regarding 
these possession as their own and as bestowing 



God the Last End 131 

upon them the greatest honor, the greatest joy 
and the greatest sweetness such as none of their 
own intrinsic perfections could impart; and 
secondly, by considering them as the good that 
belongs to God and appertaining to His everlast- 
ing glory and praise. This is the principal joy 
they draw from their beatitude and the gifts of 
glory. And this beatitude is not only their su- 
preme perfection, their supreme excellence and 
their objective glory, but is also the formal glory 
of God. For them to know God, to love Him and 
to enjoy Him is His formal extrinsic glory, and 
the greatest that can be conceived. It is besides 
the intrinsic glory of the saints and their beati- 
tude. Hence they esteem their intrinsic beati- 
tude incomparably more for the reason that it is 
the good and the glory of God than because it is 
their own. 

Finally, God is called the Last End of rational 
creatures because all the angels and all the 
blessed during all eternity will so rest in His 
vision, in His love, and in the beatific enjoyment 
of Him, that they can desire nothing beyond; 
but will find in Him the term of all their desires, 
and will enjoy in Him a most blessed repose. 



MEDITATIVE SUMMARIES 

OF THE 

DIVINE PERFECTIONS 



Preface. 

KTOT a few theological students are under the 
* ^ impression that what is called Speculative 
Theology is of very little use. They pay no at- 
tention to it during their course, and when their 
studies are over drop it altogether. They say 
they want something practical; as if Speculative 
Theology were a barren field, and the territory 
they choose to cultivate productive of abundant 
harvests. 

This is a serious error and deprives them of 
knowledge that is both delightful and useful. For 
in the first place Speculative Theology is by far 
the noblest and most estimable section of the 
science of Divinity. More than any other it de- 
serves the name of Theology, for the reason that 
its purpose is the consideration and study of 
eternal things. Now it is assuredly better to 
know even a little about the perfections of God 
such as the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the crea- 
tion and conservation of the universe, the coop- 
eration of God with creatures, the Incarnation, 
the Eucharist, the vision of God, and eternal life 
than to possess the most exhaustive knowledge of 
created things, of human inventions and human 
institutions. They are of no use except for the 
present life. 

135 



136 Meditative Summaries 

Moreover Speculative Theology not only af- 
fords a great deal of consolation if we only know 
how to avail ourselves of its teachings, but can 
lift us up to the highest perfection and sublimest 
sanctity. Theology is not, as some imagine, 
merely a battleground for scholastic disputations. 
Its chief purpose is our spiritual good and the 
fashioning of our life as Christians. By the 
study of the Divine Perfections, the soul rises to- 
wards God, contemplates Him, admires, fears, 
venerates, loves and perpetually praises and 
blesses Him. By walking always in His pres- 
ence we shape and mould our entire life accord- 
ing to His good pleasure, and in obedience to the 
least sign of His will. 

Hence these sublime mysteries should fre- 
quently occupy our thoughts, and our soul should 
be constantly exercised in the contemplation of 
the wonders this study reveals. Moreover as 
such study supposes profound reverence and an 
intellectual submission we must frequently im- 
plore the divine assistance and the light of the 
Holy Spirit. For without that help and illumi- 
nation all our labor would be both fruitless and 
useless. 

Besides, although all Theology teaches what is 
conducive to a pious and holy life, nothing draws 
us so powerfully away from the love of perishable 



Preface 137 

things and influences our heart with the desire of 
what is celestial and eternal as the meditation 
of the divine perfections. Theology will reign 
in the world to come as the unchallenged queen 
and mistress of all the sciences. There the 
science that regards only what are called the 
practical things of the present world will cease; 
and it is surely of advantage for us while we are 
living in this world to have a foretaste of the joys 
of heaven. That is what Speculative Theology 
accomplishes. It teaches men to live here below 
as they will one day live in the blessed company 
of the angels. 

St. Denis the Areopagite exhorted his disciple 
St. Timothy to practice this kind of meditation. 
He considered it to be the sublimest height of all 
wisdom and all virtue. "My dear Timothy," he 
says, "fix the eyes of thy soul continually on the 
mystical union. I mean the divine perfections. 
Remove thyself from the senses and intellectual 
operations, in fine from all sensible and intelli- 
gible things ; from all that is and from all that is 
not in order to raise thyself in a manner one 
knows not how to a union, as far as the soul is 
capable of it, with Him who is above all things 
and above all knowing." 

St. Denis is here speaking of that most ex- 
cellent mode of contemplation by which after con- 



138 Meditative Summaries 

sidering the divine perfections most attentively, 
in as much as they present themselves to it as 
limited to a certain species and as distinct from 
each other, the soul rises to something more 
sublime and limitless, and infinitely more noble; 
to something which embraces not merely the di- 
vine perfections as the created mind conceives 
them, but the Divine Being Itself, and in an un- 
known manner unites itself to Him by contempla- 
tion and love. 1 

Finally the knowledge of the divine perfections 
is the supreme and first rule of all sanctity and 
all perfection in the life of rational beings, both 
angels and men. If this knowledge is perfect, 
it alone suffices to acquire the supreme perfection 
of every virtue. "For to know Thee is perfect 
justice ; and to know Thy Justice and Thy power 
is the root of immortality." (Wis. xiv.) In 



1 This union with God by sublime contemplation is described as 
taking place in an unknown manner, because it is not made by 
contemplating any form (essence, nature) or anything con- 
ceivable by us, such as life, wisdom, power, goodness, eternity, 
etc., but by withdrawing the mind from all such things, and by 
considering God who is infinitely beyond anything that can be 
conceived. This supereminence of God which can in no wise be 
conceived by us under any form, St. Denis calls the divine 
darkness and the superessential life. For us it is darkness, be- 
cause it is conceived by the negation of every intelligible essence 
or nature; but in itself it is more resplendent than any light. 
{Ex. Lib. De Summo Bono nn. 93, 94, Lessius.) 



Preface 139 

effect the knowledge of God is the supreme 
and absolute rule of perfect and consummate jus- 
tice. This justice it excites in the heart, and after 
having excited it, augments it and after having 
augmented it, perfects it. These words of the 
Gospel of St. John: "Now this is eternal life. 
That they may know Thee the only true God and 
Jesus Christ whom Thou hast sent," (John, 
xvii) signify nothing else than that this knowl- 
edge is the rule of all rectitude by which we are 
most certainly conducted to eternal life. The 
Apostle declares it also when he so often prays 
with such ardent desire and earnest supplication 
that the faithful should increase in the knowl- 
edge of God. God Himself recommends it to 
Abraham when He says : "Walk in My presence 
and be perfect" (Gen. xvii.) What else does 
He indicate and inculcate except that by an as- 
siduous consideration of the presence of God and 
the divine perfections we may acquire the virtues 
and perfections of life. That is the reason why 
the saints showed so much zeal and resorted to 
so many devices and made so many efforts to 
walk continually in the presence of God. 

Here also we may include the manner in which 
Christ acted and which He bids us to imitate: 
"Love your enemies," He tells us; "do good to 
those who hate you and be the children of your 



140 Meditative Summaries 

Father who is in heaven who maketh the sun to 
rise upon the good and the wicked, and raineth 
upon the just and the unjust. Be therefore 
perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect. Be 
merciful as your heavenly Father is merciful." 
The Apostle follows the example of Christ when 
he exhorts the Ephesians (and in speaking to 
them he addresses us), to be imitators of God as 
most loving sons and to walk in love as Christ 
loved us and delivered Himself up for us. 

From all this it is clear that the consideration 
of the divine perfections is a most excellent rule 
of all perfection and of all sanctity. If this is 
clearly kept before our minds we need no other 
rule. 

But just as the knowledge of the presence of 
God and the meditation of the divine acts lead to 
all virtues and the perfection of life, so on the 
other hand ignorance of God and the habit of 
never considering Him at all constitute the source 
of every vice, of every turpitude and of every sin. 
As the Psalmist says : "The fool hath said in his 
heart: There is no God.' They are corrupt and 
become abominable in their ways, and there is 
none that doeth good, not one." For who is the 
man, no matter how forgetful he may be of his 
salvation who would not hesitate to commit a 
crime if he weighed attentively the displeasure it 



Preface 141 

causes God, or if he thought that God was pres- 
ent, menacing him with the divine anger and the 
curse of eternal damnation. 

The reason why the knowledge of God is the 
rule of virtue is evident. The perfection of man 
consists in union with God, his first beginning 
and his last end. Now this union originates in 
knowledge. It is the foundation of all union 
with God. As St. Denis expresses it — the first 
union with God begins by the intelligence. From 
that follows the union of heart by hope, charity 
and religion. There follows also the union of 
all the other powers of the soul, in as much as 
their effective operations are directed to God, 
namely to His glory. The blessed inhabitants of 
heaven know no other law; a fact that is worthy 
of our serious consideration. All their affec- 
tions and all their movements are formed after 
the sole and perfect rule of the knowledge of 
God. From that rule all other rules of a just and 
holy life derive their correctness. By that rule the 
doctrine and the life of Jesus Christ is shaped. 
From that rule emanate as from their source all 
the teachings and examples of the saints, and 
what confirms this still more, all laws and all 
rules are derived from the eternal law. Now the 
eternal law results from the Divine Essence, just 
as every natural law in angels and men results 



142 Meditative Summaries 

from their rational nature. Therefore the knowl- 
edge of the Divinity is the first and supreme rule 
of all perfection. 

Finally to the knowledge of God we must join 
the knowledge of ourselves. By contrasting our 
imperfection and misery with the perfection and 
majesty of God we estimate the distance between 
both, and after we have dissipated the clouds of 
self-love we may know clearly what is to be given 
to God and what to ourselves. By this compari- 
son of human baseness with divine splendor it 
will be easy to know what our duty to God is, 
and what our duty to ourselves demands. On 
our side is evil and imperfection; on God's all that 
is good and perfect. Hence all love is due to 
God's goodness, and all honor to His perfection; 
whereas punishment is the proper thing for our 
malice, as contempt is for our baseness. 

We divide this work into fourteen books. We 
shall not follow the scholastic method, but will 
adopt an easier style in order that these mysteries 
may not only be placed before the mind of the 
reader with as much splendor as possible for the 
enlightenment of their minds, but also that feel- 
ings of piety may be excited in their hearts and 
they may be filled with awe, admiration, love and 
joy. While avoiding scholastic subtleties we 
shall endeavor to explain everything by reason, 



Preface 143 

by the authority of the Holy Fathers and espec- 
ially by Scripture so that without much reading, 
what we say may furnish abundant material for 
meditation. For the attentive consideration of 
a few things illumines the mind more and touches 
the heart quicker than prolix reading and elabo- 
rate argumentations. 

This treatise was written thirteen or fourteen 
years ago, except the two last books on Justice 
and the Last end. The work was originally 
undertaken at the suggestion of Father Flerontini 
a man much given to spiritual things. When I 
gave him the manuscript, I was not much con- 
cerned about making the additions referred to 
above. Besides, other occupations were not lack- 
ing. I trust that the edition which is now 
brought out may enkindle in the reader the light 
of understanding and the fire of love. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Infinity of God. 

r\ LORD GOD! Great and terrible art Thou ! 
^^ God of immeasurable majesty! Thou 
art an infinite ocean of being, of goodness and of 
beatitude, compassing in Thyself all being and all 
good ; anticipating it from all eternity, possessing 
it before it existed: for Thou art the source of all 
being. Thou art the foundation of all possible 
things. Thou are the superessential Being of all 
beings, both of those that are and of those that 
are not. Without Thee nothing can exist either 
in act or in potency, or can even be conceived by 
any understanding. Thou art the beginning of 
all beings, the end of all beings, their Creator, 
their support, their place, their duration, their 
term, their order, their connection, their har- 
mony and their consummation. 

All the good that is in men and angels is in 
Thee, and also the good of every purpose or end 
of all beings, both of those that are and those 
that are not. In Thee reside all glory and dig- 
, nity and riches and treasures ; all sweetness and 
consolation, all joy and all beatitude. Thou art 
144 



The Infinity of God 145 

my God and my All; the God of my heart; my 
portion and my God for all eternity. 

May all passing things be regarded by me as 
vile for Thy sake; may everything that regards 
Thee be dear to me, and Thou, My God, more 
dear than all. For what is all the rest when com- 
pared to Thy excellence? What is all else but 
a cloud and a shadow and a vain thing ? All the 
riches and all the delights and all the glory of 
the world which so miserably fascinate the eyes 
of men are as nothing, and only prevent us from 
knowing and seeking our true good in Thee. As 
one who in sleep dreams of riches and pleasures 
and honors, and awakes only to discover that it 
was a delusion ; so will it happen to those who love 
the world. When the slumber of this life is 
broken they will awaken in the light of a different 
world. 

Let me therefore, O my God! esteem none of 
the things that pass. Let me esteem Thee alone, 
and the treasures that are hidden in Thee. They 
are Thyself; and those who despise the perishable 
things of earth, and cleave to Thee alone will 
enjoy Thee for ever. 

Let me love Thee above all things, and serve 
Thee always, because Thou art infinitely better 
than all things and most worthy of being loved, 
cherished, revered, served and glorified by all 
creatures for all eternity. 



CHAPTER II. 

The Immensity of God. 

ORD ! How great Thou art and how worthy 
*-** of all praise ! Of Thy greatness there is no 
end. Thou art higher than the heavens, more 
extended than the ocean, more profound than the 
abyss. Thou fillest all, Thou encompassest all. 
Thou dost hold the universe as a little globe in 
the hollow of Thy hand. As a philosopher has 
well said (if indeed he understood it in a sane 
sense), Thou art an incomprehensible sphere 
whose centre is everywhere and whose circum- 
ference is nowhere. 

Thou occupiest all the space of all the places 
that are within and without the world. Thou 
art Thyself the foundation, the site, the space of 
all space. Thou extendest primarily and estab- 
lishest the immensity of all space and of all the 
intervals therein, both possible and actual, in Thy 
quality of the first foundation upon which all else 
is built. Thou extendest not only the heavens 
and capacious vastnesses of this world, but in a 
still more marvellous way, Thou extendest that 
space itself in which Thou hast established the 
world by no other span than that of Thy magni- 
146 



The Immensity of God 147 

tude. That limitless magnitude is the first and 
the fundamental capacity and the spaciousness or 
the potential extension in which all other space 
can be, and by reason of which the boundlessness 
of space is imaginable by the created mind, 
just as Thine eternity is the first and original 
duration and conceivable foundation of things 
that endure. 

Not only by the immense diffusion of Thy 
Being dost Thou occupy limitless space, super- 
arching and subtending its abyss, but Thou art 
moreover in all beings and in all places of this 
universe, in each one in particular, and in what- 
ever points of it may be designated. Thou art 
there present with all Thy Divine Being, alto- 
gether and entire within it. Thou art there with 
all Thy power, Thy wisdom, Thy goodness, and 
all Thy perfections; with all Thy gifts, with all 
Thy treasures, to adorn and render happy all 
Thy creatures. 

Thou art hidden entire in every being, inces- 
santly creating all things, forming them, conserv- 
ing them in all the luminousness of being; else 
they would fall back again into their proper dark- 
ness and nothingness ; and finally, Thou drawest 
them to Thyself by the inclination to good that 
Thou hast implanted in them. 

Convert my heart to Thee, from within, 



148 Meditative Summaries 

I implore Thee, down to the innermost 
depths of my being. There let the noise of all 
creatures die, and all the tumult of importunate 
thoughts cease. Let me abide in Thee; let me 
see Thee ever present; let me love and revere 
Thee; let me hear Thy voice; let me lay bare to 
Thee the miseries of my exile and let me find con- 
solation in Thee. Let me never lose sight of Thy 
presence, O Light and Sweetness of my soul! 
Let me never forget Thee, but on what ever side 
I turn let the eyes of my soul ever fall upon Thee. 
Being present entirely in each place, Thou dost 
shed the rays of Thy presence upon all beings. 
For as the soul of man that cannot be seen be- 
trays itself by the movements and acts which the 
body performs making us fully aware of its pres- 
ence, so O Lord ! do Thou who art the Supervital 
Life and the Superessential Being of all beings, 
show Thyself in a way that will be manifest in 
the beauty of Thy creatures which are brilliant' 
mirrors of Thine admirable wisdom and power. 

For what in effect are all creatures but a cer- 
tain impression and as it were a copy of Thine 
eternal thought. Thou art the primordial and 
universal seal, and all creatures are the resulting 
impressions produced by that seal. Nor dost 
Thou impress Thyself on matter that abides and 
retains this signet mark after the seal is removed, 



The Immensity of God 149 

but on what is as it were fluid and evanescent and 
tending to nothingness. Indeed no creature can 
exist a single instant if Thy seal is withdrawn 
from it. That it may continue to exist, there is 
needed from Thee a continual presence and a 
continual impression. Thus then, O my Lord! 
shall I recognize Thy presence in all creatures, 
because Thou art hidden in each of them and 
givest incessantly to them their being, their rank 
and their beauty. 

Grant me, moreover, to understand with all 
the saints the length and breadth and height and 
depth of Thy Divinity; so that having no more 
affection for myself, I may plunge into that in- 
finite ocean and lose myself therein along with 
all that is created, thinking of nothing outside of 
what I meet in those depths, feeling nothing, lov- 
ing nothing, seeking nothing more than to rest in 
Thee alone, possessing all things in Thee alone, 
and enjoying all good in Thee alone. For just 
as Thine Essence is infinite and measureless, so 
every good that is in Thee is infinite and without 
bounds. Who can be greedy to such a point that 
infinite and limitless good will not satisfy him? 
Let me therefore seek nothing outside of Thee, 
and be Thou to me all things and above all things. 
O God of my heart! O God! who art mine in- 
heritance for all eternity ! 



CHAPTER III. 
The Immutability of God. 

< <HT O Thee O King of ages, immortal, invisible, 
* the Only God" and my Sovereign 
Master "be honor and glory" (I Tim. i; James i) 
from all creatures in heaven and on earth and 
above all creatures, in the highest and most in- 
accessible light of Thy wisdom and Divinity. 
Thou art the author of all immortality and all 
stability. Thou art the adhesiveness and the 
bond of every creature. 

It is by Thee that angelic natures and reason- 
able beings are immortal and indestructible. 
Through Thee the heavens possess their 
"strength as if they were of molten brass" (Job. 
xxxvii, 18). By Thee the earth as an immobile 
centre, "standeth forever" (Eccl. i, 4) balanced 
by its own weight in the midst of the universe. 
By Thee the indissoluble nature of the elements 
and of matter persist. Thou hast with Thy 
mighty hand imprinted beauty upon all creatures 
that no art can ever rob them of. Thou guard- 
est them intrinsically with such a power and Thou 
communicatest to them such a potent force of 
cohesion that no violence can ever disintegrate 
or disunite them. 
150 



The Immutability of God 151 

Thou art not only the author of immortality 
and stability, but Thou art, besides, the primary 
and supreme origin of all movement both cor- 
poreal and spiritual. For nothing visible is done 
in the vast commonwealth of the world that is 
not ordained or permitted in the invisible counsel 
of Thy sovereign Majesty. There is decreed the 
ineffable distribution of Thy gifts, recompenses, 
and punishments, and the apportionment of the 
sorrows and joys and the other vicissitudes of 
this life. 

All the plans and arrangements of things sub- 
ject to change are in Thee without change, and 
the origins of all things temporal are eternal in 
Thee. Once before all the ages Thou didst de- 
termine upon all things; once for all Thou didst 
speak, and by the power of that statute or ordi- 
nance Thou didst open the series of the ages and 
didst determine everything that in due course 
should come to light in its proper time and place. 
The order of time is in Thee without time; and 
there can be nothing new for Thee who from all 
eternity hast made all future things. Thou 
hast made them, I mean in Thy predesti- 
nation of them; in that decree which ordains 
or permits them; and in that infallible fore- 
knowledge which sees all things as if they were 
present. 

In Thee is the plenitude of all good, preexisting 



152 Meditative Summaries 

and anterior to all the ages. To it nothing can 
be added, and from it nothing can be taken away. 
Thou possessest simultaneously from the begin- 
ning all that can be added in the infinite succes- 
sion of ages, and Thou canst lose nothing, be- 
cause by Thine Essence, Thou hast and art every- 
thing. Thou dost not need our service; there 
can be to Thee no advantage in our salvation, 
nor can our damnation be to Thy detriment. 
Even if the whole world should perish, Thou nev- 
ertheless wouldst lose naught thereby and Thy 
glory and Thy beatitude would suffer no diminu- 
tion nor be in any way impaired. 

But in spite of that, Thou dost love us with an 
eternal and infinite love. There is nothing Thou 
wouldst not do to save us and make us partici- 
pants in Thy beatitude. Nay, when we wandered 
away from Thee, Thou didst not abandon us. 
Thou didst call us back again in a thousand ways 
as a tender father who calls after his fugitive 
children, promising pardon, so that we might 
not fall into eternal misery. 

O! the immense sweetness of Thy Spirit 
which prompts Thee to show such benignity to 
us, not only when we merit naught but even when 
we are ungrateful and rebellious; when we do 
not cease to offend Thee and repay with evil the 
infinite favors Thou bestowest upon us. 



The Immutability of God 153 

Illumine our darkness, O! Primordial Light! 
Remove from the eyes of our souls the foolish 
fascination of this world's trifles which perverts 
the simple sense. Let us perceive clearly the dif- 
ference between what is perishable and what is 
immortal, what passes and what abides, the goods 
of this world and those of the world to come. 
Let us despise the former and strive to attain and 
cleave to the latter. Remove from us all incon- 
stancy of mind that we may not waver in our 
good resolutions, or ever abandon what we have 
once begun. For nothing is more harmful to 
spiritual advancement than that instability of 
soul which is never fixed and which at the slight- 
est breath sways like a reed in the wind. 

Let a ray of Thy light illumine the lofty sum- 
mits of our soul, and do Thou draw our mind on 
high towards Thee, above the spheres of all 
changing things, above all the ways of the sun 
and of the years, and above all created things. 
Enchain it to Thee by the indissoluble bond of 
love, so that neither death, nor life, nor poverty, 
nor riches, nor glory, nor ignominy, nor pleasure, 
nor pain, nor height, nor depth, nor the gates of 
hell itself, nor all the torments of the demon, may 
ever wrest us from Thine arms or separate us 
from Thee. 



CHAPTER IV. 

The Eternity of God. 

"DEFORE the mountains were made or the 
*-* earth, and the world was formed; from 
eternity unto eternity Thou art God." (Ps. 
lxxxix). Thou art the Beginning and the Maker 
of all things. Thou art therefore before all 
things. Not by any necessity of Thy nature didst 
Thou create this universe, this vast palace with 
its inhabitants and its riches, so that Thou might- 
est have something coeternal with Thee. It is 
not as with the sun and its rays. It was with 
sovereign liberty, and as its supreme artificer, 
that Thou didst form the design of it and didst 
shape it according to Thy good pleasure. Thou 
art therefore more ancient than Thy work which 
is not six thousand years old. And how many 
centuries older art Thou ? Nor can this question 
seem strange even if before the world was made 
there were no centuries in which Thou wert, and 
in which Thou wert in the enjoyment of all good. 
For although before the creation of the heavens 
and earth, there were no phases of the sun and 
moon which measure our days, our months and 
our years, and by which we know the brief space 
154 



The Eternity of God 155 

bf time that our possessions last* we can not 
however doubt, unless we wish to dispute about 
words, that there were durations and spaces like 
our days and months and years and centuries* 
through which those movements could have ex- 
tended and run their course if they had then ex- 
isted, just as after this world has come to and end 
and the movements of the planets have ceased, all 
the duration and lapses of time will not thereby 
be abolished. 

Let us conceive an extent of time by going back 
a hundred thousand centuries before the creation 
of the world. Thou, O my God already wert. 
Let us add to this many millions of centuries, and 
Thou wert before all that time, as great, as 
powerful, as wise, as happy as Thou art now. 
Finally let us figure in imagination a still greater 
and greater multitude of centuries which are 
ever and always receding into the past, and we 
shall find that Thou wert still there, more ancient 
than an infinity of ages and always with Thine 
infinite possessions and Thy sovereign beatitude. 

For Thou art the foundation, the beginning 
and the measure of all the ages. Thine eternity 
precedes and dominates them all, and beneath 
Thee they roll onward in their course. As by 
Thine immensity Thou reachest forth encompass- 
ing and containing all space, so by Thine eternity, 



156 Meditative Summaries 

Thou dost precede, anticipate, encompass and 
span the spaces and extents of time as the root 
and origin of all times. For beneath Thee are 
inaugurated all the beginnings of things, all prog- 
ress that is made, all life that flows, all move- 
ments that advance, all existence that endures, 
all ends that are reached, and all boundaries that 
circumscribe. 

O Eternity ! Thou art the primordial and un- 
ending reunion of all that is good; the total, 
perfect and simultaneous possession of a life that 
can never grow old ; the supereminently complete 
fruition without beginning and without end of all 
happiness. For Thee there is no past nor future ; 
for Thee there is no possible augmentation nor 
decrease. From the altitude of Thy Now, that 
actual moment which embraces infinite time, 
Thou gatherest together all things at once. Thou 
holdest them all present in such wise that they 
cannot flee away to the past, nor arrive at any 
thing new in the future. Thou precedest and 
anticipatest all things, present, past and future, 
and tfcey are already present to Thee before they 
can have aught of the future in their being. For 
although whatever was to be in the future was 
such from all eternity, nevertheless it would not 
have been so, hadst Thou not known it, and either 
wished or permitted it. 



The Eternity of God 157 

In Thy Now all things are once for all con- 
sidered and decreed. In it all counsel about all 
things is held and concluded. No deliberation 
remains to be made; all have been thoroughly 
scrutinized and examined. What is ever to be 
or not to be has been denned and decided. In 
that Now we have been numbered and 
weighed, and all our works have been placed in 
the balance ; in it everlasting glory or everlasting 
punishment is decreed for us; there we either 
reign with the saints in glory or burn in hell with 
the demons and the reprobate. The eternity of 
Thy foreknowledge and of Thy decree precedes 
and anticipates all things, and all that is to be 
done in time has there been already done. 

O Eternity! Abyss of joy for the saints, 
abyss of misery and pain for sinners! For as 
Thou makest all things infinitely better and more 
desirable so Thou renderest all evil infinitely more 
painful and more terrible. What spirit can com- 
prehend Thy greatness; what strength of soul 
sustain Thy weight? Thou crushest down all 
pride; Thou shatterest all hardness; Thou curbest 
all rebellion ; Thou terrifiest all sinners and f orti- 
fiest all the just in their tribulations by pouring 
out in their soul a joy that is ineffable. "For 
that which is at present momentary and light of 
our tribulation, worketh for us above measure, 



158 Meditative Summaries 

exceedingly an eternal weight of glory." (II Cor. 
iv). For the suffering of a moment we receive 
good that is everlasting; for a tribulation that is 
light, an immense weight of glory; for earthly 
affliction glory in heaven. Who would prefer to 
endure an everlasting punishment rather than 
deprive himself in this life of an enjoyment that 
lasts .only for a moment? Who would prefer 
earthly things which are so vile and fleeting to 
those of heaven which are so sublime and which 
endure for ever? 

O Eternity! Be Thou ever present to my 
mind. Inhere in my innermost sense; be the rule 
of all my actions and of all my life ; make me think 
of Thee so as to despise and regard as evil all 
that passes, be it of weal or woe ; be my solace in 
all suffering ; my help in all temptations ; my light 
and counsel in prosperity. 

To Thee who art the Beginning of all begin- 
nings and more ancient than them all, who art 
the Father of the ages, the King of the centuries, 
the dispenser of all time, the basis of all that sub- 
sists and abides and who givest a blessed eternity 
at the last, be all honor and glory for ever and 
ever. Amen. 



CHAPTER V. 

The Omnipotence of God. 

IT OW adorable and tremendous is Thine Om- 
A A nipotence ! How it should be contemplated 
in the silence of religious and reverential awe ! O 
Lord! King of the Ages! Thou canst do of 
Thyself whatever all Thy creatures united can 
do. By Thee is established and on Thee depends 
whatever there is of power, of strength and of 
energy in all things. With one word Thou hast 
created all things from nothing, and after having 
drawn them from naught Thou didst keep them 
in being by Thy substantific concurrence, and 
didst hold them as it were suspended by the hand 
of Thy power and didst prevent them from fall- 
ing back into their original nothingness. 

Before Thee the universe is like an imper- 
ceptible atom, and all the nations like a drop of 
dew that falls before the rising of the sun. Thou 
canst do and execute not only what all men and 
all angels can conceive in their minds, but also 
whatever Thine own infinite wisdom can con- 
ceive. For Thy power is equal to Thy wisdom 
and coextensive with it in its outpouring. 

Thy wisdom is the sole rule and the sole meas- 

159 



160 Meditative Summaries 

ure of Thine omnipotence, and what other 
measure can a measureless power be guided by 
than a measure which has no limit? 

Hence it follows that Thou holdest and pos- 
sessest no less the things that have not actually 
been brought into being but also those which 
actually exist and which appear in their nature 
and species. They remained hidden in the treas- 
ure-house of Thy power and wisdom, until they 
heard the summons that bade them stand forth 
and utter the words: "Behold us ready to do 
Thy will." 

Thou hast no need either of our praise or of 
our service. Didst Thou wish it, Thou wouldst 
have on the instant an infinity of servants who 
would worship Thee incomparably better than 
we, and give Thee praise of every kind. 

Do Thou penetrate my soul with the most pro- 
found sentiments of respect and humility in pres- 
ence of Thy power which is so great, since Thou 
canst, O my God! dispose of me and of all 
creatures according to Thy good pleasure, and 
there is none that can say: "Why hast Thou 
done this?" All things are Thine and the work 
of Thy hands. Be always present in my 
thoughts, O my God ! Let me ever see the hand 
of Thine omnipotence extended, menacing me 
with the lightning of eternal damnation if I am 



The Eternity of God 161 

rash enough to violate Thy holy law. Give me 
also a serene confidence in Thee that I may fear 
no one but Thee, and let no creature avail to sepa- 
rate me from Thy love. For what are all things 
in Thy presence? And in what can they harm 
me without Thy permission ? If Thou permittest 
that I should be afflicted by some one, deign that 
it may be for my salvation and a means to merit 
eternal life. Amen! 



CHAPTER VI. 

The Wisdom of God. 

ILLUMINE my eyes O Primordial Light; 
dissipate the darkness of my soul O Eternal 
Sun. "Send forth Thy light and Thy truth"; 
that they may conduct me and bring me "unto 
Thy holy hill and into Thy tabernacles" (Ps. xlii). 
For Thou art the origin of all light and of all in- 
telligence. Thou art the Author of all under- 
standing, of all reason. Without irradiation 
from Thee everything would remain buried in the 
darkness and night of ignorance. All the arts 
and all the sciences are but feeble rays that eman- 
ate from Thee. All the wisdom of the Angels 
is but a minute spark of Thine infinite light. 
Thou art the source of all that is beautiful and 
lovable, of all form and of all beauty, of all order 
and of all proportion, of all fitness and all agree- 
ment, of all sympathy and all aversion. Thou 
hast created the nature and the species of all 
beings, Thou hast established in the constituent 
elements of each its agreement and analogy, its 
number, and order, its measure and its mode. 
Thou art the primordial seal of all things. Thou 
dost penetrate them all by Thy purity and Thy 
162 



The Wisdom of God 163 

subtility, forming them all interiorly and coordi- 
nating everything that is in each. And although 
"Thou reachest from end to end," (Wis. viii) 
that is, from the highest heaven to the profound- 
est abyss, Thou enterest into all things without 
mingling with any. Thou art not soiled by their 
contact but keepest Thy splendor and purity un- 
sullied. Infinite are the ways by which Thou de- 
scendest to Thy creatures to form or illumine 
them and in which Thou diffusest Thyself upon 
them, and yet Thou remainest in Thine unchange- 
able identity fixed most firmly above all created 
things. Innumerable are the revelations Thou 
hast imparted to us by the lips of Thy servants, 
as well as by an infinity of signs and symbols 
through which Thou hast manifested Thyself to 
the understanding of men, yet by a single and 
most simple thought Thou accomplishest all 
things. 

Thou art the author and creator of everything, 
the model, the measure, the end of all. Not only 
art Thou the author of all things visible and in- 
visible that exist and have already re- 
ceived from Thee the beauty with which 
Thou hast invested them, but Thou art also the 
author of those creatures which are not, but 
which may be created by Thine omnipotence, 
and they are infinitely more numerous. All of 



164 Meditative Summaries 

these beings Thy Thought has seen and formed 
in itself before the ages, and Thou keepest them 
in Thy presence although Thou hast decreed 
never to give them existence by creation outside 
of Thyself. It is as with a great architect who 
forms in his mind many designs of a palace and 
who rejoices and triumphs in these plans which 
his imagination presents to him, although he has 
resolved never to reduce them to act. 

All the beings which constitute the world of the 
possibles exist before Thee in supreme perfection 
and they shine from all eternity in Thy presence 
no less than those that Thou hast exteriorly 
created. They are surrounded by Thy light and 
appear in the order and nature assigned to each 
of them. Thou rejoicest and dost triumph at 
the sight of all these beings that Thou beholdest 
in Thine inaccessible light where Thou possessest 
them. There they cannot decay nor grow old, 
nor be obscured by darkness, nor fall from Thy 
divine hand, but they always subsist in the same 
immutable and eternal splendor. 

O ! Admirable Wisdom ! To Thee all things 
past and future are present ; to Thee all things of 
time are eternal; before Thee all things that are 
f eelingless and dead are living, and all things that 
are not, exist. Thou embracest simultaneously all 
eternity. Thou exhaustest all infinity and con- 



The Wisdom of God 165 

tainest all immensity. All things have within 
Thee an eternal being and an eternal life, with- 
out beginning or end; and they are utterly un- 
changeable. Each of them, indeed, has in itself, 
either in act or potency, its own intrinsic being; 
but this in created things has a beginning and is 
subject to change; nor does it give life to what is 
inanimate. But over and above this being 
which they have in themselves, they have in the 
divine wisdom and understanding something in- 
trinsic which is, as it were, infused and which is 
immutable and everlasting. For the conception 
of things is a certain intelligible entity by which 
they exist in the mind, and by which they shine 
and live there as in a spiritual world. Thy wis- 
dom therefore is the being and life and light of 
intelligible things according to the words of St. 
John: "Quod factum est, in ipso vita erat." 
What was made in Him was life. cl, vv 3, 4, 
which is the meaning given to the text by St. 
Augustine and other Saints. 

All things are in the Divine Essence as in their 
basis and primordial foundation. They are in the 
power of God as in their efficient cause which has 
created all things; they are in His wisdom for- 
mally and objectively as in their exemplar or ideal 
cause. 

The Infinite Wisdom first turns towards 



i66 Meditative Summaries 

the Essence of God, and understands it 
perfectly, for it is equal to and commen- 
surate with it. From that adequate com- 
prehension of the divine essence proceeds 
immediately the conception or the repre- 
sentation of all possible things; following that 
conception is the distinct knowledge of whatever 
all actual and possible creatures can do; then 
comes the clear intuition of everything that can 
be done in all possible suppositions, and finally 
there is the eternal vision of all things past, pres- 
ent and future. 

In this manner and in this order, Thy Wisdom, 
O Great God! proceeds, as it were, from five 
spheres of objects and intelligible things, and all 
that it conceives, it conceives by the power of the 
adequate comprehension of Thine infinite Es- 
sence which is the first cause and the foundation 
of all possible things. Thus in Thee is found not 
only the universality of wisdom and intelligence 
but also the universality of intelligible things 
and objects. 

To Thee, then, O Plenitude of Light ! Plenitude 
of Truth ! and Infinite Wisdom of God ! be honor 
and glory from all creatures, and above and be- 
yond all creatures, be honor and glory in Thy- 
self who art the clear and consummate knowledge 
of the divine excellence. O! Omnipotent God! 



The Wisdom of God 167 

Thou makest Thine excellence to shine in the un- 
derstanding of the Angels and Saints, and in that 
splendor there is something of Thy glory. But 
it is infinitely more resplendent in Thy Wisdom, 
for infinite light is more brilliant than a feeble 
spark. 

Let Thine own wisdom therefore give Thee in- 
finite praise; and let every creature rejoice in it, 
felicitate it, praise it, bless it, glorify it. Thou 
hast no need of our glory or our praise; a spark 
adds nothing to infinite light, but we find our ad- 
vantage in it, for to know Thee and to praise 
Thee is our greatest good. It is eternal life. 



CHAPTER VIL 
The Goodness of God. 

HP HE Lord is good and most lovable. His 
A goodness knows no bounds. Not that He is 
good in this manner or that, in this or that kind 
of good, but He is absolutely good without be- 
ginning, without end, without limit and without 
mode or measure. He precedes all good and com- 
prises all good in Himself alone. 

This good none has given to Thee that Thou 
shouldst repay it with gratitude. Thou, O simple 
and primordial Goodness, hast it of Thyself, and 
it is from Thee that all things taste the sweet- 
ness of what is good for them, according to their 
grade in creation. For Thou art the plenitude 
and universality of good, the original source of 
all good to whom all beings from the highest 
created substance down to that which is at the 
ultimate confines of creation are indebted for 
whatever good they possess. 

No creature can find in its own nature all its 
own good. It needs many things that its nature 
should be complete and perfect even in its own 
genus and within the limits of its nature. But 
Thou by Thy most simple essence hast every ex- 
cellence, every perfection, every beatitude, every 
168 



The Goodness of God 169 

good and Thou needest naught outside of Thy- 
self. 

The good of every creature is restricted and 
circumscribed within certain bounds. It does not 
contain within itself the good of anything else. 
Hence we stand in need of an infinity of things 
in order to live, because each thing in particular 
affords us but little of itself. But Thy goodness, 
that is to say, the good of Thy simple essence is 
boundless; is overflowing on all sides and su- 
premely sufficient of itself for everything. For 
as Thou art the primordial source of all things 
there is naught that can limit or circumscribe the 
condition of the good that is in Thee. Hence just 
as Thine essence, Thy power and Thy wisdom are 
infinite because they are primordial, and flow 
from no other source, and are cbnsequently 
boundless, so Thy goodness and Thy perfection 
are boundless because they precede all goodness 
and perfection and depend on nothing that might 
limit them. A nature that is of itself limitless 
cannot be subjected to any limitation except by 
an efficient cause. But as the perfections which 
are in Thee have no efficient cause, they must 
necessarily know no bounds. 

Woe to the wretches who seduced by the mani- 
fold kinds and inextricable multitude of baser 
things seek outside of Thee, with so much care, 



170 Meditative Summaries 

worry, labor, and peril of their salvation, the 
riches, pleasures and honors of this world ! They 
can find them all in Thee in a better and easier 
manner, not merely as in human things for a 
fleeting moment but for all eternity. For all 
things are in Thee. In Thee they are 
most pure, are enjoyed simultaneously and 
without limit. In Thee are found in 
a supereminent manner the glitter of gold, the 
beauty of precious stones, the fruits of the fields, 
the delights of gardens, the magnificence of pal- 
aces, the riches of cities, the glory of kingdoms. 
Everything that is desirable in the world, all that 
is glorious and honorable and lovable are found 
in Thee in the highest degree, in the most perfect 
purity, and all in closest union for ever and ever. 
Moreover from them is excluded every imperfec- 
tion that is found in created things. 

In Thee are found all delights and pleasures, 
all that recreates, and all that charms, all con- 
solations and all joys, all beauty and all felicity, 
all beatitude and the consummation of beatitude. 
It is from Thee that what is sweet derives its 
sweetness, what is luminous its splendor, what is 
living its life, what has feeling its sensation, 
what moves its power, what has understanding 
its knowledge, what is perfect its perfection and 
what is good its goodness. 



The Goodness of God 171 

Thou art the author, the type, the end and the 
preserver of all perfection. Thou terminatest all 
infinity; Thou goest beyond every end, Thou 
limitest every measure, Thou formest whatever 
is beautiful as well as what is lacking in beauty. 
But Thou art perfect of Thyself, perfect beyond 
all conception, perfect from all eternity; possess- 
ing in Thyself by Thy simple unity all excellence 
and all perfection. 

Thou art great without quantity; good without 
quality; infinite without number; beautiful with- 
out figure; eternal without time; immense with- 
out location; diffused without extension; perfect 
without multiplicity ; and most high without situ- 
ation. Thou art the centre of the universe to 
which all things tend by their innate weight; in 
which they all rest and by which they are all 
sustained. In Thee are found the attraction of 
every love ; the consummation of every desire, the 
term of every movement, and the satisfaction of 
every appetite. 

What is not the power of Thy supereminent 
goodness, since at the least gleam of its rays, and 
even of its faintest reflection, all creatures rush 
towards it with impetuosity ! For every being in 
this universe seeks its own special good and tends 
towards it with all its might. But that good is 
only a feeble vestige of Thy goodness. It is good 



172 Meditative Summaries 

that attracts every creature and excites every 
movement in the world; and all that moves, acts 
and works in created things, moves, acts and 
works only by the desire of something good. But 
if a faint shadow excites such power, what will 
not the Truth itself do? I mean infinite beauty 
and goodness when seen in the light of heaven. 

Draw my soul to Thee, O boundless Beauty! 
Enchain it to Thee by an indissoluble bond and 
by the eternal fetters of Thy love. For what can 
I seek or desire outside of Thee who art the pleni- 
tude of all good, the source, the end, the sweetness 
of every good, and who art infinitely better and 
more excellent than all good? Let me therefore 
despise everything else, and let me ever think of 
Thee. Let me love Thee always; let me live in- 
timately attached to Thee, and let me make of 
Thee my abiding place. Let me love Thee and 
bless Thee ; let all the powers of my soul, and my 
whole life be consumed in Thy service. Let all 
passing things be considered vile in comparison 
with Thee, and let me despise them for love of 
Thee. Let all that is Thine be dear to me, and 
be Thou, O my God, dearer than all. According 
to Thy most exalted pleasure, perfect me in Thy 
knowledge and Thy love, and translate me en- 
tirely into Thee so that I may be of one spirit 
with Thee. Amen. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

The Sanctity of God. 

« < If OLY, Holy Lord God of Sabaoth. All the 
* * earth is filled with Thy glory." (Is. vi.) 
Such is the cry of the Seraphim in that mystical 
vision in which Thou didst show to Thy prohpet 
Isaias something of Thy glory, and something 
of the terrible judgment which befell the Jews. 
They had filled up the measure of their iniquity, 
by refusing to recognize Thee when Thou didst 
come in the midst of them as the Word made 
Flesh; and now the celestial spirits demand that 
Thy holiness should be avenged. Three times 
they claim it with evident reference to the great 
mystery of the Trinity. For "Thine eyes are 
too pure to behold evil" says Habacuc (c. i.) "and 
Thou canst not look upon iniquity." As Thou art 
Holiness itself, all sin displeases Thee supremely, 
and hence "Thou wilt destroy all those who work 
iniquity." (Ps. v and xxvii.) As the darkness 
is contrary to the light; ugliness to beauty, foul- 
ness to purity, obliquity to rectitude, malice to 
goodness, death to life, so all sin is contrary to 
Thy sanctity and is held by Thee in horror. 
Therefore just as Thou hast a sovereign love 

173 



174 Meditative Summaries 

for Thy holiness, so Thou hast necessarily a sov- 
ereign hatred for sin, and Thou punishest it by 
an infinite penalty, unless Thy mercy prevents 
the sinner, inspires him with contrition and ac- 
cords him pardon when he repents. 

No one ever has been pleasing in Thy sight ex- 
cept by sanctity, and no one endowed and 
adorned with it has ever displeased Thee. It is 
sanctity alone that gives children and heirs to 
Thy kingdom. To it alone was the communica- 
tion of Thy glory and of Thy beatitude promised 
and prepared before the ages. We have been 
"chosen by Thee before the foundation of the 
world that we should be holy and unspotted in 
Thy sight in charity" (Eph. i), and capable of 
the eternal inheritance. 

Not Thy power, nor Thy wisdom nor the 
sublimity of Thy majesty, but Thy sanctity, didst 
Thou command us to imitate. Thou didst say: 
"Be holy as I am holy." (Levit. ii). For it is 
proper that He who is the source of purity and 
sanctity, who is pure above all purity, holy above 
all holiness should have ministers who are holy 
and free from all taint of sin. But whence can 
we have such purity that we may be worthy to 
enter into Thy holy presence and to employ our- 
selves in that which concerns Thy service? We 
dwell in habitations of clay and in thought and 



The Sanctity of God 17 S 

act are in constant contact with earthly things. 
If the celestial spirits who are exempt from all 
corporeal admixture and purer than the heavens, 
are nevertheless infinitely removed from that 
purity which ministering to Thee exacts, how far 
must we be from it who are incomparably beneath 
them in merit! It is in this that Thy benignity 
displays itself. Far from rejecting Thy servants 
because they are sinners and covered with the de- 
filement of earthly things, Thou drawest them 
to Thee to remove their stains, to illumine their 
darkness, to sanctify their affections and to make 
them worthy to appear before Thy face, as far 
as the restricted capacity of their mortal nature 
permits. Thou dost not demand of us what is 
due to the exaltedness of Thy sanctity but what 
is proportionate to the feebleness of our nature. 

Thou art the author, the end, the rule, the 
model of all holiness ; of whom, for whom by the 
imitation and resemblance of whom all are sancti- 
fied in heaven and on earth. The whole universe 
is like a temple of Thy divinity, consecrated to 
Thy worship, sanctified by Thy presence, full of 
Thy glory, adorned with Thine admirable works. 
In it Thou wishest to be honored, praised and 
blessed by us in this life and in the life to come. 

But the sanctity of rational nature is more 
sublime, just as Thy presence declares itself with 



176 Meditative Summaries 

incomparably greater splendor in spiritual than in 
corporeal nature. For spirits can draw near 
Thee and unite themselves with Thee in a more 
excellent manner; and to know Thee and love 
Thee is the holiness of spirits. By that knowl- 
edge and that love, Thou dwellest in them and 
they become for Thee a temple more acceptable 
and more august than this vast machine of the 
universe which is incapable of feeling Thy pres- 
ence. By that knowledge and love also they 
approach Thee, and are bound to Thee by a liv- 
ing tie and they are lost in the abyss of Thy 
purity. For he who knows passes into Him who 
is known, and he who loves into Him who is 
loved. Hence as Thou art a most Pure Act, and 
if we may so express ourselves, art not only at 
the summit of spiritual simplicity and purity, and 
infinitely above material and corporeal things but 
because also Thou art infinitely simple, infinitely 
subtile and infinitely spiritual, it is necessary that 
he who is elevated to Thee and united to Thee 
and made the same spirit with Thee, should be- 
come more simple, more pure and be ever more 
and more removed from the contagion of lower 
things. Such is the sanctity with which rational 
creatures and angels should be endowed to please 
Thee perfectly. 

But O Infinitely Holy God ! Thou hast found 



The Sanctity of God 177 

a degree of sanctification incomparably higher 
still when by Thyself and without any created 
gift Thou dost sanctify one creature by drawing 
it to Thee in a manner far above what Thou hast 
done for all others, by uniting it to Thee sub- 
stantially in the Hypostatic Union. It is thus 
Thou hast sanctified the Most Blessed Humanity 
of Our Lord Jesus Christ, so that in Him, along 
with the plenitude of the Divinity there is found 
also the plenitude of sanctity. 

O admirable sanctification, altogether incom- 
prehensible for all created intelligences! O in- 
finite condescension of the divine goodness which 
has opened and established for the human race 
such a source of expiation and holiness! It is 
from this fullness that we have all received, and 
what remains suffices to wash away the sins of a 
thousand worlds and to sanctify an infinite num- 
ber of souls. Thus by one man all men are 
sanctified and led back to God, just as by one man 
they had been separated from God and defiled by 
sin. 

And because we are gross, dependent on the 
senses, and buried in material things, Thou dost 
accommodate Thyself to our weakness by sancti- 
fying us through the instrumentality of sensible 
things and giving us Thy Spirit and spiritual 
gifts by contact with what is corporeal. O ad- 



1 78 Meditative Summaries 

mirable counsel of the eternal wisdom! From 
children of wrath Thou makest us children of 
God, heirs of eternal life, sharers in the divine 
glory, and Thou accomplishest this by the contact 
or use of sensible signs, though we deserved to 
be in every way confounded and condemned to 
eternal death. O admirable sweetness and good- 
ness that has wrought so great and divine a thing 
by means of which we are made like unto God 
and without which we could not please Him ; and 
all that not only by things that are so humble and 
by instruments so weak, without labor or effort 
on our part or at least with only a trifling co- 
operation! O true age of gold and of grace is 
this time of the New Testament, when earth af- 
fords us so many celestial treasures and such an 
abundance of divine gifts which we can gather 
with such astounding facility! It is now that 
the heavens rain down honey and the mountains 
distill sweetness, and the rivers overflow with 
milk and wine, and vast storehouses of heavenly 
treasures are thrown open to mortals so that in a 
little time and in the easiest possible way they can 
enrich themselves and be equal to the angels. 

Glory be to Thee, benediction and thanksgiving 
from every creature in heaven and on earth, O 
Author of all sanctity ! Such a blessing can come 
only from Thee and Thou alone can show Thy 



The Sanctity of God 179 

love for man in such a manner. Thou hast given 
us the Saint of saints, and Thou hast made Him 
an eternal source of sanctification for "the cleans- 
ing of the sinner and of her that was defiled." 
Thou hast sanctified this Saint of saints by com- 
municating this sanctity to Him, and through 
Him to all others. It is from Him that all holi- 
ness flows into the symbols or sacraments. From 
the sacraments it pours itself into the soul 
through the body ; from the soul it redounds upon 
the body and on man's most interior workings, 
and from what is interior to what is exterior. 
Thus the whole man is made holy and his entire 
life is dedicated and consecrated to Thee. He is 
brought back to Thee who art his beginning, 
and he rests in Thee who art his sovereign good 
and last end. It is thus Thou recallest Thy 
creature to Thee and makest him worthy to abide 
in Thee. 

O God! make me draw unceasingly from that 
source ; make me live in that fountain always and 
whiten my garments in the Blood of the Lamb! 
"Wash me yet more from my iniquity and cleanse 
me from my sin; sprinkle me with hyssop," in this 
fountain of blood of the mystical sparrow and I 
shall be purified; lave me in that water and "I 
shall become whiter than the snow." 



CHAPTER IX. 

The Benignity of God. 

f\ LORD how sweet is Thy spirit and how 
^^ great is Thy benignity to every creature! 
For though Thou lackest naught and sufficest 
fully for Thyself, Thou hast drawn all this uni- 
verse from nothing so as to make every creature 
according to his capacity feel the sweetness of 
Thy goodness and receive the impress of Thy 
beauty. Not because it was advantageous or use- 
ful for Thee didst Thou do all this, but solely for 
the advantage of Thy creatures, in order that 
each according to his own little measure might 
participate in Thy good and taste the fruit of Thy 
benignity. 

It is therefore by Thee that all things have been 
drawn from the abyss of their nothingness; it is 
from Thee that they receive the being which is 
so dear to them, and with that being, its species, 
its beauty, its desire of good and its aversion from 
evil, its powers, its functions, its inclinations, its 
movements, its place in the world, its order, its 
perfection, its end. Thou givest to each whatever 
is most suitable for it and what delights it most. 
Thou accordest to the animal world a manifold 
180 



The Benignity of God 181 

feeling which is both pleasant and good and 
which is a shadow, and a lower degree of felicity. 

Hence all things praise Thee, and with their 
silent voices intone in Thine honor a sacred hymn 
wherein they celebrate most clearly Thy power, 
Thy wisdom, Thy goodness, Thy providence. 
For "the heavens show forth the glory of God and 
the firmament declareth the work of His hands. 
Day to day uttereth speech and night to night 
showeth knowledge. There are no speeches nor 
language where their voices are not heard. 
Their sound hath gone forth to all the earth and 
their words unto the ends of the world." 
(Ps. xviii.) 

But Thy benignity shines forth, O my God! 
in a still more incomparable manner in our 
nature ; for Thou hast created us to Thine image 
and likeness making us bear on our brow the 
traits of Thy countenance. Thou hast given us 
understanding, will and memory, to render us 
capable of Thy divinity, Thy glory and Thy 
beatitude. Thou hast showered upon us Thy di- 
vine assistance, and adorned us with grace in 
order to help us to merit and acquire those 
precious possessions. Thou hast deputed Thine 
angels to defend and direct us. Finally this world 
with all that it has of riches or goodness, Thou 
hast made for our habitation and our comfort, 



182 Meditative Summaries 

and Thou hast delivered it over to us. Can any 
greater benefits or any more admirable benignity 
be conceived ? But how our admiration redoubles 
when we reflect that Thou hast done all this to 
elevate us to a state that is divine, and to make us 
participants in Thy beatitude. 

By Thy nature Thou possessest the most ab- 
solute plenitude of glory and happiness. But in 
that state Thy benignity could not contain itself. 
It pours itself out on all creatures to make them 
share in Thy good. For that reason hast Thou 
created angels and men who are capable of such 
an exalted destiny and hast drawn out of nothing 
all this universe with its riches for the good of 
man. 

Did ever a monarch on this earth share his 
kingdom with vile and abject slaves? And yet 
kings and slaves are equal in nature and differ 
from each other only in their fortune and ex- 
ternal things. 

As for us we are not only infinitely removed 
from Thee by the conditions of nature, but are, 
moreover, in the lowest rank of intelligent 
creatures. Nevertheless Thou hast loved us more 
than all others, and Thou hast lavished on us in 
greater abundance than on any other creatures 
the riches of Thy divine bounty. It is the charac- 
teristic and bent of benignity to lower itself to 



The Benignity of God 183 

what is base, to lift up what is abject, to exalt 
what is humble and to communicate riches and 
bestow them more abundantly where the need is 
most manifest. 

"Thou art verily, O my God," as St. Bernard 
says, "an omnipotent love, a most benevolent 
power, immutable order, eternal sweetness, creat- 
ing the world to make it a participant of Thy- 
self; vivifying it to make it feel its Creator; 
touching it by Thy sweet contact to make it long 
for Thee ; dilating it to fill it with Thyself ; justi- 
fying it to enable it to merit, inflaming it to make 
it burn with zeal; fecundating it to make it fruit- 
ful; prompting it to righteousness, forming it to 
benevolence, moderating it to wisdom, visiting it 
to bring comfort; illumining it to augment its 
knowledge, guarding it for immortality, encom- 
passing it for protection." (Lib. iv. de Consid.) 
It is thus that Thou crownest us with Thy mercy 
and compassionate sweetness ; it is thus that Thou 
fillest us and surroundest us on all sides with 
good things, so as to make us recognize Thy 
goodness and Thy love, and to excite us to give 
love for love. 

Thou hast resolved to lead us by love to our 
first beginning, to unite us to Thy goodness and 
Thy beauty, and to transform us into Thyself. 
There was no way more efficacious for this than 



184 Meditative Summaries 

the method of love. For love is exstatic and uni- 
tive, that is to say, it lifts us out of ourselves and 
unites us to Thee. We cannot be changed into 
Thy nature. That would involve the destruc- 
tion of our being which is a created thing. If it 
were destroyed we should lapse into nothingness 
and be incapable of all feeling and of all good; 
but what nature cannot do, love accomplishes. 
Thou lightest in us that love in a thousand ways, 
in order that by its fire we may be melted, or 
liquified and absorbed in Thee, just as a drop of 
water in a vat of wine assumes the color and the 
flavor of wine though the substance of the water 
remains entire. Love makes the one who loves, 
to be no longer himself in affection and senti- 
ment. He is changed into the one he loves, so 
that no difference can be discerned between them. 
For by love the lover so cleaves to the beloved 
that as far as in him lies he strips himself of his 
own being to put on that of the beloved, and to 
be one and the same as the object of his affec- 
tions. He thinks only of the good of the beloved, 
desires only that and labors to augment it. Thus 
he can say with the Apostle: "I live, but not I. 
It is Christ who liveth in me." (Gal. ii). Love 
thus makes a man forget himself, and makes him 
no longer belong to himself. It causes him to die 
to himself and live in the object of his love. In 



The Benignity of God 185 

that manner the one who attaches himself to God 
is made one Spirit with Him. This is the per- 
fection and consummation of sanctity, and eternal 
life. It is being one with God by the force of love. 

It is thus we revert to that primordial type in 
which we exist from all eternity, not by anything 
intrinsic to us, but by the force of the idea and 
the conception of the divine understanding which ' 
effects that from all eternity we have lived, 
labored, and borne the burdens of life in the mind 
of God although we were nothing in ourselves. 
Thence, because of God's love for us we passed 
to our created state, as the form of an edifice 
passes from the mind of the architect into the 
condition of actual production, or as the picture 
passes from the imagination of the painter to his 
canvas. Thus are we brought back by love and 
when thus brought back, are united to, and trans- 
formed into the idea which God had of us as if 
the picture were to penetrate the mind of the 
painter and unite itself intimately to the original 
type. 

Thou comest down and enterest into us by love, 
to enkindle its fire in us, and by it to lift up our 
hearts on high and change them into Thee. For 
as fire by the force of its flame converts every- 
thing into itself, so Thou who art a consuming 
fire convertest everything into Thee by the force 



186 Meditative Summaries 

of Thy love so that we may think only of Thee 
and of what concerns Thee. Let us taste with de- 
light and feel and desire only Thee, and let us 
speak of naught but Thee. Let that love make 
us go out of ourselves, so that we may forget all 
that pertains to us as if we no longer existed. 
Let us enter into Thee, live in Thee, abide in 
Thee, and find our delight in Thee. Let this love 
so possess us that all our life shall be for Thy 
glory, without fear of any danger, or the refusal 
of any toil. Let it change into bitterness what- 
ever is worldly, and convert labors undertaken 
for Thee into sweetness. In our eyes let affronts 
be glory; poverty, riches; persecutions, pros- 
perity; infamy, fame; sickness, comfort; life, 
death. For all the woes of this life, supported by 
Thy love, are better than all the goods of this 
world. "If we suffer with Him we shall be 
sharers in the Kingdom." By that love, O God ! 
be our life, our nourishment, our dwelling, our 
possession, our riches, our glory, our strength, 
our refuge, our repose, our consolation, our pro- 
tection, our assurance, our joy, our beatitude. 
Amen. 



CHAPTER X. 
The Dominion of God. 

<<I WILL bless Thee all my life long and in 
* Thy name I will lift up my hands." (Ps. 
lxii). "Thou art the King of kings and the 
Lord of lords." (I Tim. vi). "Thou art the 
Lord of all and there is none that can resist Thy 
majesty." (Esther xiii). 

All things persevere in their course in pursu- 
ance of Thy command; all creatures observe the 
law which Thou hast given, and each one renders 
Thee homage according to its capacity and 
power; all confess in unison that Thou art their 
Creator and their Master. Thou hast sovereign 
power over all. Thou canst dispose of all, ac- 
cording to Thy good pleasure, and none has the 
right to demand an account of Thy actions and 
to say: "Why hast Thou done this?" All the 
kings and rulers of this world with all their 
pomp and magnificence, with all their kingdoms 
and armies, with all their riches and majesty are 
but worms of the earth, and as nothing in Thy 
sight. The least of Thy servants who has the 
honor to serve Thee in Thy heavenly palace is 
greater than all kings together, and no earthly 

187 



188 Meditative Summaries 

potentate is capable of supporting the majesty of 
the least of those who form Thy court. Every- 
thing mortal melts like wax in presence of the 
splendor of an angel and faints away before him. 
What then is the glory of Thy majesty which is 
infinitely greater and more excellent than that of 
all the angels. "Great is the Lord and greatly to 
be praised and of His greatness there is no end. 
Generation and generation shall praise Thy 
works and they shall declare Thy power." (Ps. 
cxliv.) The kings and kingdoms of earth will 
suddenly fall and be reduced to naught but Thy 
kingdom shall endure for ever and all Thine 
enemies shall be under Thy feet. The kingdom 
of the demons and the wicked which now dis- 
turbs the world in its oppression of justice and 
truth shall be utterly destroyed. But Thy king- 
dom shall keep all under its domination and Thou 
shalt be all in all. 

It is Thou great God ! who hast created us all ; 
we are the work of Thy hands ; Thou hast shaped 
and moulded us as the potter his clay. All that 
we are, all that we have the power of doing, all 
that we possess, we have received from Thy 
bounty. It is all Thine. Thou art the maker and 
the deviser of all. Thou hast drawn all things 
from naught ; from the depths of darkness and the 
abyss of nothingness hast Thou taken them. 



The Dominion of God 189 

Thou hast suspended them in being, in the light 
of Thy countenance, in order that all according 
to their species and forms may shine before our 
minds and suggest to us Thy majesty. But as 
by their innate propensity and of themselves they 
lean towards the nothingness from which they 
have been drawn, it is not sufficient to have once 
made them, but it is necessary that Thou shouldst 
hold them in Thy hand and incessantly support 
them by that same substantinc influence that has 
produced them, in order that, at each instant they 
may receive the benefit which they had received 
when they began to be. The weight which is 
suspended in the air must be continually 
sustained. If left to itself it falls to earth in the 
twinkling of an eye. So all creatures in this uni- 
verse need to be incessantly preserved in their 
being and their nature by Thine Omnipotent 
hand. If Thou withdrawest it, even for an in- 
stant they will fall into nothingness and perish 
suddenly like a shadow that passes away. There 
is no solidity in bodies or permanency in spirits 
unless it is received from Thy strength which re- 
strains and holds them intrinsically and prevents 
they from flowing off like water, or scattering 
like smoke or vanishing as a vision or a phantom. 
For Thee, all things are soft and pliable; all 
things are like a liquid that trickles off and dis- 



190 Meditative Summaries 

appears from sight. But at the least sign of Thy 
will They instantly take the form and figure which 
it pleases Thee to give. Before Thee neither the 
mountains nor the rocks are solid, nor is adamant 
hard, nor the heavens or stars fixed. Nothing 
can subsist without the perpetual and vivifying 
influence of Thy light. 

Thou art therefore the absolute Master of all 
things. By Thee they were all created and on 
Thee they depend. Thou sustainest them lest 
they fall, keepest them lest they change, restrain- 
est them lest they flow away, and holdest them to- 
gether lest they perish. 

Thou art the deviser, the author, the worker, 
the preserver, the support, the exemplar and the 
end of all things. It is by Thee that all things 
exist so that they may contribute to Thy glory: 
rational creatures by knowing Thee, loving Thee, 
honoring Thee, praising Thee; irrational ones by 
serving for our use, and by their marvellous 
beauty exciting our souls to admire and to love 
Thee. And, although we exist only for Thee, 
and although what belongs to us is destined for 
Thy glory we are not on that account vile and 
miserable; for our nature and our greatest good 
is to serve Thy glory. To serve Thee is to reign ; 
to obey Thee is to go forward to heaven. To 
serve Thee is better than to rule the whole world. 



The Dominion of God 191 

When the soul is engaged in Thy service, it is 
exalted, it is united to Thee and because of its 
closeness to Thee is illumined by Thy light and 
becomes like Thee. When it is engaged in ruling 
others it withdraws from union with Thee, 
descends to inferior things and dissipates itself 
in its quest of a multitude of things none of which 
avail for its advantage. Only what is above the 
soul makes the soul better. 

It is a great delusion to make so much of em- 
pires and kingdoms, and governments, and pre- 
lacies and place, if while ruling others we neglect 
ourselves; if we exhaust ourselves and trample 
on right and justice to grasp at a shadow of hap- 
piness which shuts us off from our true good and 
our eternal salvation. For there is nothing that 
so powerfully withdraws the soul from the love 
of celestial things; nothing that entangles it so 
inextricably in those of earth ; nothing that gives 
more unbridled license to commit sin, and ex- 
poses us to the danger of remaining in it; noth- 
ing that sweeps aside more effectually all salutary 
counsel; increases more the malice of sin, makes 
one participate more in the sins of others than do 
prelacies and principalities. No doubt there are 
some who accept these charges for other motives 
than ambition or earthly interests, and who de- 
sire to advance the common good and to lead a 



192 Meditative Summaries 

greater number of souls to salvation. Such men 
may expect a rich reward because of the difficulty 
of their undertaking and the extent of the good 
they procure; but it is far safer to be hidden in 
the lowest ranks and to be concerned about one's 
salvation. 

O God ! grant me the grace to despise human 
praise, to flee wordly honors, and to live to be un- 
known by men. Let it suffice for me to know 
Thee, and to be known by Thee; to serve Thee 
and to prefer Thy service to all the empires of 
the world and all the honors and dignities they 
can bestow. Let that be my glory and my exalta- 
tion ; the summit of my ambition, the title and the 
insignia of my dignity. Let others glory in king- 
doms and principalities, in nobility and riches, 
and whatsoever honors the world may confer. 
Let all my glory consist in being Thy servant; 
let all that belongs to me be dedicated and con- 
secrated to Thee and ever employed in Thy ser- 
vice. Let all my thoughts, all my cares, all my 
efforts, all my purposes tend to Thy honor and 
have no other end but Thy glory. 



CHAPTER XL 

The Providence of God. 

f\ GOD our Father, Thy Providence governs 
^^ all things; "it reaches from end to end 
mightily"; from the sublimest height of the 
heavens to the profoundest centre of the earth, 
from the highest seraph, to the vilest worm; 
and in doing so, "it disposeth all things sweetly." 
Most powerful is the touch of Thy hand by which 
all things are created and sustained; most sweet 
is that disposition of things, by which all things 
are established in their place and rank, directed 
to their end and given freedom in their individual 
actions. 

It is neither by the fortuitous concurrence of 
atoms, nor by the violent struggle of the elements, 
nor by its own action that this world was formed 
and flashed into the light, but by the counsel and 
power of Thy Providence. How could a work of 
such vast intelligence and wondrous art, in which 
the sublimest intelligence is apparent, in which 
all is admirably regulated with such order, pro- 
portion, beauty and symmetry be performed with- 
out design and without wisdom? 

Thy Providence has thought out all these 

193 



194 Meditative Summaries 

things from all eternity, and has conceived, de- 
vised, developed and set them all in their respec- 
tive places. It determined the species, the meas- 
ure, the form, the organs, the inclinations of all 
creatures. It endowed them with their various 
forces and modes of action and panoplied them in 
armor for the exercise of their proper functions 
and defense against their foes. It assigned spec- 
ial ends to each, appointed separate causes for 
each and provided each with what was best suited 
to its nature. 

From the beginning and before the world was 
all things were established in Thy Providence. 
In it the order of time subsists without time, nor 
can anything new be added to it, and all that can 
occur in the course of time exists in it before time 
began. For the power that disposes of whatever 
is subject to change is that unchanging and un- 
changeable intelligence in which things existed 
together before time, although in time they are 
separated; for time is a series of successions. 

There stand the immutable causes of all 
mutable things; there shine the eternal plans of all 
that is temporal ; there are planted the necessary 
roots of all that is contingent ; there are enforced 
the laws that are stable, and there are determined 
the ends of all agents and of all actions. There 
by a firm, ineffaceable and irrevocable decree, en- 



The Providence of God 195 

graven on tablets harder than adamant, is re- 
corded the salvation or loss of each according to 
his deserts. There with their sanctions are the 
laws about all things ; their birth, their life, their 
progress, their functions, their effects; all the 
eventualities of life and all the circumstances of 
death. By these decrees are determined at what 
time, at what moment, in what place, by what 
causes, in what order, and in what manner each 
thing is to exist in this world. 

Without the laws of Thy Providence, O my 
God ! nothing is born, nothing dies, nothing acts, 
nothing moves, nothing is at rest. It directs all 
things to their ends; it is intrinsically present to 
them and presides over them; it forms and gives 
to each its nature and by that nature leads it in 
its proper functions to its proper end. For what 
are the natural instincts and inclinations of every 
creature but a vestige and impress of Thy 
Providence? Thus it is that all irrational 
creatures act with such regularity and tend with 
such order to their respective ends of which they 
have neither knowledge nor feeling. 

What art does not the spider display in weav- 
ing its web from its own vitals to spread a net for 
the flies which it pursues. With what subtlety 
and industry the bees build their cells! With 
what skill they form their hexagonal dwellings 



196 Meditative Summaries 

in which their young are born and which are at 
the same time reservoirs of the nectar they 
gather ! With what care they sip the morning 
dew and suck the juice of the flowers ! And how 
many other marvellous things they perform in 
that diminutive republic of their hive ! 

I speak not of the admirable skill of the birds 
in building their nests in which they find rest and 
safety, and where their young are hatched and 
fed and taught. I say nothing of the astonishing 
things we behold in the silk worm, or of its in- 
dustry in drawing from its own body the threads 
which are so finely spun as to be scarcely dis- 
cernible but out of which it forms the cocoon 
which encloses it like a tomb from which it 
emerges months afterwards to live again by a 
resurrection that is such a striking image of our 
own future rising from the grave. 

I pass over in silence the infinite number of 
things which both in the animal and vegetable 
world seem to be done with such intelligence, art 
and providence that no greater perfection would 
appear to be possible. Yet this does not come 
from the skill of these creatures in providing for 
their needs, but it is Thy Providence, O my God ! 
that leaves its trace and sheds its glow on them, 
making them act as if they were endowed with 
a most exalted providence and a perfect art. Thus 



The Providence of God 197 

it is that all the actions and all the works of na- 
ture are really the actions and works of Thy Wis- 
dom and Thy Providence, and all these irrational 
creatures act as perfectly in conformity with 
the laws of Thy Providence as if they were en- 
dowed with a most perfect knowledge. 

Rational creatures of course are to be excepted. 
They possess a certain providence of their own, 
and being free, refuse at times to submit to Thy 
Providence and desire to live according to their 
own providence and at the caprice of their wills. 
It is from that source that spring all sins and all 
sorrows. Nevertheless nothing occurs without 
Thy Providence, for though rational nature by 
thus sinning, ceases to act in conformity with 
the law which Thou hast prescribed, yet on the 
other hand it does not act outside of the law of 
Thy Providence, from which it draws the very 
power that it uses for its own perdition. Thou 
permittest it to do what it could not do without 
Thy leave, and Thou assignest certain lim- 
its to its action beyond which it cannot go, nor 
can it do more harm than what Thou permittest. 
Thou hast completely circumscribed it by the 
circle of Thy Providence from which there is no 
escape and which so dominates all creatures that 
none can throw off its yoke. 

Woe to sinners who endeavor to withdraw 



198 Meditative Summaries 

from its government and law, and to live accord- 
ing to their own providence, their own pleasure, 
and the promptings of their free will. When they 
step aside from the providence which leads to 
life, they subject themselves to the providence 
which dooms them to death; when they depart 
from the order in which sweetness and mercy 
reign they descend into that of rigor and of 
justice; when they cast aside the sweet yoke of 
the divine commandments they bend their necks 
to the cruel slavery of the damned and of ever- 
lasting punishment. O madness that should be 
wept for with tears of blood! What has fasci- 
nated the minds of men to lead them to this excess 
of folly! 

Especially are religious to be pitied who instead 
of abandoning themselves to the guidance of 
Providence by the hands of their superiors, wish 
to live according to their own prudence and wis- 
dom, and are as concerned about themselves as 
if they had no one to care for them. They with- 
draw from Thy sweet and infallible Providence 
by which they would have been directed most 
surely and most meritoriously to their eternal sal- 
vation. For there are various modes in Thy 
Providence and different orders of governments 
and graces which are adapted to each individual 
and designed for each one's salvation. Happy 



The Providence of God 199 

the one to whom Thou appliest that order of 
providence and that mode of government which 
Thou knowest to be for him most salutary and 
most productive of merits. There is nothing- 
more desirable in this world, nothing more re- 
plete with happiness than to pass through the 
whole course of one's life in conformity with such 
an arrangement and under such a guidance, be- 
cause from it proceed an assurance of salvation 
and an assistance for eternal glory. 

For religious there is no form of government 
more salutary that that in which Thy Providence 
conducts them during life by the hands of su- 
periors, in the functions, missions, residences, 
studies and indeed in everything else to which 
they are assigned. Otherwise why should the 
Holy Fathers lavish such praise on perfect and 
blind obedience ? Why should so many holy and 
learned personages practise it so strictly? Why 
should they proclaim that it is the surest way to 
salvation? Why should Our Lord Himself have 
so recommended and counselled it and in so many 
ways have set us an example of this obedience? 

There is no possible doubt that he who aban- 
dons himself to Divine Providence and who, so to 
speak, casts himself in its arms, and permits him- 
self to be governed by it in all things, is following 
the surest road to salvation; whereas one who 



200 Meditative Summaries 

does otherwise and wishes to withdraw from it 
and to govern himself by his own wisdom is ex- 
posing himself to a great danger of falling into 
the order of that providence in which he will 
suffer the loss of his soul. Such a manner of 
life is condemned by all the saints and is con- 
sidered as imperilling one's salvation, no matter 
how holy and salutary it may appear. Examples 
are not wanting of religious who have perished 
in that way, but there is no instance of any re- 
ligious who was lost by abandoning himself to 
Divine Providence as expressed to him by his 
Superiors, or even of his being worse off for so 
doing. For how O Lord! could one do better 
than to yield to what Thou persuadest him to do ? 
Hast Thou not bound Thyself by promise to lead 
us to salvation ? Let me therefore never wander 
away, but keep me until my last breath in that 
path which in preference to all others Thou, O 
my God! and all Thy saints have commended 
to me. 

Never is Thy Providence deceived in what it 
ordains ; for before it determines, it knows what 
will happen in each supposition and in each dis- 
position of events. It is never foiled in its effect, 
or in the advantage that is obtainable. For 
though the order of inferior causes which are 
only imitations of Thy Divine Providence may go 



The Providence of God 201 

awry on account of the shiftings and imperfec- 
tions of such an order, so that the end it aims at 
is not reached, yet the order and arrangements 
of Thy sublime Providence never fail of their 
proper and determined purpose, but invariably 
attain it. It is true that in the present life, and 
as long as the term to which all those things tend 
is not reached, this may not appear. But when 
this world finally ends and the whirl of human 
things stops for ever, then the strength of God's 
Providence will manifest itself; then all the mis- 
chances of inferior causes will be seen to have 
been corrected, and everything established in the 
unchanging and eternal order. Then shall 
we see clearly how wisely and sweetly this di- 
vine Providence acted in accordance with the 
nature of each created thing and how everything 
was administered in the manner that was most 
conducive to the divine glory and the salvation of 
mankind. 

May this Providence which is so exalted be 
forever before my eyes, and let me persuade my- 
self that whatever may come either of prosperity 
or adversity, is ordained by it and depends on it ; 
that thus O my God ! I may receive it as a bless- 
ing from Thy hand; for nothing is done in time 
which has not been for most just reasons or- 
dained from all eternity. Let this be my consola- 



202 Meditative Summaries 

tion in the hardships of life. When my spirit 
is troubled and afflicted by the confusion of 
human things, and the disasters which fall upon 
the nations, upon religion and upon souls, let Thy 
Providence give me as my portion, serenity and 
peace. 

Thy Providence, O God ! most wisely disposes 
all things. It will correct perfectly all the 
faults -of creatures and all the infractions of or- 
der, and will subject all to an order so profound 
that the glory of thy Majesty will be resplendent 
in it and even shine with greater effulgence 
than if all had preserved the order which had 
been originally prescribed. 

But abandonment to Divine Providence does 
not prevent the evils and disasters that fall upon 
our neighbor and especially such offenses as are 
against the divine majesty from touching us pro- 
foundly and overwhelming us with sorrow. It 
is the condition of this life; and moreover the 
law of charity should cause us to be so affected, 
for without this spur, we should with difficulty be 
urged to fly to the assistance of those who suffer. 
Nevertheless, in all this, one must not lose sight 
of moderation. When such things happen and 
there is no hope of preventing them and when 
neither our endeavors or prayers avail, it is 
proper to banish useless sorrow and to console 



The Providence of God 203 

ourselves, O my God ! with the contemplation of 
Thy Providence. 

Let that Providence give me confidence amid 
the errors of life, assurance in danger, strength 
in difficulties, patience in adversities, and serenity 
in facing what the future may have in store. Let 
it remove from my soul any idle anxiety, by im- 
pressing it with the firm belief that whatever 
happens to me, O my God ! comes from the kind- 
ness and benignity of Thy Providence. At the 
same time let it awaken in me such attention and 
activity as are necessary for dealing with the 
affairs of life in accordance with their impor- 
portance and with what my state of life requires. 
The government of Thy Providence, O my God ! 
calls for our studious cooperation; but it forbids 
and cannot tolerate superfluous care and anxiety 
for the temporal concerns of this life. 

May it please Thy Providence, O my God! to 
dispose of me and govern me till the end, as it 
knows it to be expedient for my salvation and 
Thy glory, either by prosperity or adversity, by 
honor or ignominy, infamy or praise, abundance 
or poverty, sickness or health, life or death. I 
except nothing, I wish to avoid nothing. It is 
my only desire, and one long formed in my heart. 
Dispose of me as Thou knowest to be most con- 
ducive to my salvation and Thy glory, in order 



204 Meditative Summaries 

that, O my God! I may contemplate Thee and 
admire Thee during all eternity, that I may love 
Thee, that I may honor Thee, that I may praise 
Thee, bless Thee and glorify Thee in all things 
and above all things. Amen. 



CHAPTER XII. 

The Mercy of God. 

* < I SHALL sing forever the mercies of God, 
* His great, His prodigious, His ancient and 
His new mercies, whose number is without end; 
for "the earth is full of the mercy of God and His 
mercy is above all His works." (Ps. lxxxviii 
and xxxii. ) 

O my Lord and my God ! Thy hand has taken 
us in the beginning from the darkness of nothing- 
ness and lifted us into the light of being, giving 
us our species and an exalted and imperishable 
nature sealed with the light of Thy countenance 
and adorned with magnificent gifts that we might 
have some appreciation and knowledge of Thee 
and Thy bounty. Thou hast endowed our senses 
with such power that we can discern and begin 
to understand the whole material world and all 
that is contained in it, and we may perceive the 
evidence of Thy power, of Thy wisdom and of 
Thy beauty which shine in it so marvellously. 
Thou hast endowed us with understanding and 
judgment, to know truth, to distinguish good 
from evil and to rise from sensible to intellectual 
things. Thou hast given us memory to recall 

205 



206 Meditative Summaries 

the past so that what was once perceived might 
not float away and compel us to labor anew in 
order to understand. Thou hast armed us with 
a will to avoid evil and to follow what is right, to 
enjoy what we attain, and above all to cleave 
to Thee by love, and to enjoy Thee our greatest 
good forever. Of what pertains to the body we 
need not speak. 

Behold to what a height Thou hast made us 
rise! Behold the first benefits of Thy mercy. 
They are many, they are inestimable and yet they 
are but the essays, the outlines of far greater 
blessings still. Thy lavish benignity did not halt 
there. It has gone farther yet to perfect its work 
and to eradicate from our souls the slightest im- 
perfection. To this elevation it has added a sec- 
ond; it has raised us to another degree more 
eminent than the first, for it has lifted us from the 
state of nature to that of grace and of filiation 
which is incomparably more exalted, no matter 
how perfect and sublime our nature may be. 
And the reason is that such an honor can be 
neither the natural appanage even of the most 
perfect creature, nor be due to any natural dig- 
nity with which it is endowed. For no created 
being can of its nature be a son of God, heir to 
His kingdom, and the possessor of the Holy 
Ghost. Yet such prerogatives have been ac- 



The Mercy of God 207 

corded to us by the out-pouring of Thy second 
mercy. In this degree, Thou hast made us the 
sharers of Thy secrets. Thou hast made us know 
the mysteries hidden in Thee from all eternity; 
Thou hast united us to Thee by supernatural 
faith, hope and charity, and hast lifted us above 
all created things. With all human beings it is 
reckoned among the greatest dignities to be the 
son of a king. Such a title confers on a man, 
even if he is personally of little worth, honor and 
respect, and the whole world proclaims him happy. 
But how far beyond that is the dignity of one who 
is a son of God, and an heir to the heavenly king- 
dom ? In the entire universe could there be any- 
thing more sublime ? It makes us venerable even 
in the eyes of the angels ; and if they themselves 
were not elevated to the same dignity they might 
be envious of the honor conferred on us. Hence 
it is that a single just man who fears God is bet- 
ter in the estimation of God than a thousand who 
are wicked. (Eccl. xvi.) Whosoever therefore 
has not this dignity of the sonship of God counts 
for nothing even if he is endowed with all the 
gifts and favors of nature. 

But the liberality of Thy mercy is not confined 
within these limits. It has raised man to a third 
state which is most sublime. It has made him 
ascend from the state of grace and of initial son- 



208 Meditative Summaries 

ship to that of glory and complete filiation. For 
the gifts of glory are infinitely more excellent 
than those of grace. The latter Thou accordest 
in this life, but the knowledge they give is of 
faith and consequently obscure, but in the light 
of glory we are endowed with clearness of vision. 
In one there is the hope and desire of the supreme 
good ; in the other there is possession ; in the one 
fear and apprehension, in the other certainty; in 
the one. expectation, in the other enjoyment; in 
one battle, in the other victory. Although here 
below we are really children of God and have a 
right to the kingdom, nevertheless we do not yet 
possess it, are not altogether sure of it, and many 
lose it. For we are not yet free from the miseries 
of our mortal life; darkness and ignorance still 
cloud our mind, and our inclination to evil is not 
irrevocably corrected by the inflexible rule of 
right. Hence the state of glory is incomparably 
more excellent and sublime than the state of 
grace of the present life. To be convinced of it a 
study of the good that is bestowed on us by each 
of these states will be amply sufficient. 

This, O God, is the third and noblest elevation 
of our nature; the supreme degree in the com- 
munication of Thy gifts. From it are excluded 
every misery and every imperfection. It is to 
this sublime degree that the immeasurable sweet- 



The Mercy of God 209 

ness of Thy mercy has destined us in order that 
in it our mortality may be absorbed, all suffer- 
ing cease, all want and all imperfection banished, 
all sorrows assuaged, and every tear wiped away. 
In order that we, Thy children, O my God, may 
be made sharers in Thy possessions and riches, 
we are established in consummated glory. "All 
things for the elect." That is to say, all 
things were ordained with a view to bring as 
many as possible to the glory and participation 
of the kingdom of heaven. 

But after having been elevated to this second 
degree, instead of making every effort to rise to 
the third, although we had every help at hand, 
and could do so with the greatest ease and the 
greatest joy, yet alas ! because of the shameful 
act of our first father who had, so to speak, the 
will of all of us included in his own, we with- 
drew from the order and guidance of Thy mercy, 
and as a consequence turned away from Thee and 
plunged into everlasting ruin. Surely it would' 
have been better to have fallen into our primitive 
nothingness than to have been condemned to 
eternal fire which was then inevitable. No 
remedy was left us; no creature could avail to 
help, for none could offer to Thy justice a pro- 
portionate satisfaction for our crime. It seemed 
all over with our race, and there was no hope of 



210 Meditative Summaries 

salvation, when Thou, O God of mercy ! touched 
by our misfortune, didst come again to our aid 
in such a marvellous and unheard of way that it 
ought to be for us an eternal subject of wonder. 
In the excess of Thy love Thou didst vouchsafe 
that Thy Son who is coeternal and consubstantial 
with Thee should assume our nature, in order 
that being a man like us and capable of suffering, 
He would make reparation for our crime, and in 
our stead satisfy Thy divine justice by His suffer- 
ings and His death. 

Taking our nature upon Himself and uniting 
it to Him by the ineffable bond of the Personal 
Union, this well-beloved Son is born of a Virgin 
and enters into the darkness of the world in which 
He is to be subjected to the miseries of our mor- 
tality, such as hunger and thirst, heat and cold, 
poverty and want, labor and fatigue, outrages 
and affronts, persecution and calumny, bitterness 
of soul and torture of body, and finally the cross 
and death. He is born in a stable like a beggar 
and a wanderer; He is wrapped in swaddling 
clothes as an infant; He weeps as mortals weep; 
He is circumcised as if He were subject to the 
law; He takes to flight as if He were without 
power; He lives as if He were unknown; He 
obeys His parents as if He were their inferior; 
He lives as an ordinary man until the time came 



The Mercy of God 211 

in which He was to manifest Himself. He is 
baptized by His servant as if He were a sinner ; 
He fasts in the desert; He is tempted by the 
devil; He chooses ignorant and rude disciples; 
He instructs them and leads them step by step 
in the way of perfection. He journeys over the 
whole country with them; He teaches the people 
the way of salvation; He heals the sick, consoles 
the afflicted, delivers the possessed ; sanctifies sin- 
ners, dispels the darkness of ignorance, illumines 
the world, astounds it by miracles, permits some 
gleams of His Divinity to flash upon men's eyes 
and exhorts all to reform their life and to be so- 
licitous about their salvation. 

Finally after having taught a heavenly doc- 
trine, after having wrought many miracles and 
given examples of every virtue, He then, in order 
to consummate the work of our redemption, de- 
livers Himself up entirely as our ransom, and sub- 
mitting to a most ignominious and cruel death 
offers His life and His blood for our salvation. 

O ineffable mercy ! How little right the human 
race had to it! O pure and gratuitous love! O 
unhoped for condescension! that the King of 
Glory should deign to take the form of a slave, 
give Himself up to such labor and suffering, and 
finally accept the death of the cross to save not 
only the vilest of slaves but His bitterest enemies ! 



212 Meditative Summaries 

Was there ever a father who for the deliverance 
of his son, or a son for the deliverance of his 
father, or friend for that of his friend, would 
have done what God has done for man; the 
Creator for a creature, the Sovereign Majesty 
for a worm of the earth? 

But His mercy did not stop there. All that He 
did and suffered for us, all the merits of His life 
He grouped together and left to us in the sacra- 
ments as an inexhaustible treasure from which 
we might forever draw. 

O admirable treasure! O infinite riches by 
which we may ransom ourselves from eternal 
death, acquire the kingdom and glory of heaven 
and gain the possession of God! Finally, to 
leave nothing undone that His infinite love could 
accomplish, and to give us a supreme pledge of 
that love, He left us His Flesh and Blood which 
He had offered on the cross for our redemption 
and made them a sacrifice to appease the justice 
of God, and a food to fortify us for eternal life. 

By this act of mercy, O Lord ! Thou hast con- 
quered. It alone rises above all that Thou hast 
done, above all that mind could conceive or 
creatures hope for. Who that thinks of it can 
fail to love Thee? Who would not be ready to 
devote himself and be utterly spent in laboring 
for Thine honor and Thy service, since in so 



The Mercy of God 213 

many ways Thou hast spent Thyself and more 
than spent Thyself for our salvation. What are 
our services compared with the benefits Thou hast 
conferred on us? And what is our life when 
measured by what Thou hast done and suffered 
for us? It is a drop of water to the ocean; a 
grain of dust to the terrestrial globe. It 
is far less than all that, for there can 
be no comparison between the finite and 
the infinite. What then shall we offer 
Thee, since the consecration of our life 
and of all we have is already due Thee under a 
multitude of titles? If one should owe a prince 
ten thousand talents that were stolen, and ten 
thousand more that were borrowed, and another 
ten thousand for an injury done, and another ten 
thousand for something bought, and yet had only 
two small coins to pay it all would the prince be 
satisfied with such a settlement ? Never. 

But Thou, O my God! carriest Thy goodness 
and mercy farther. For although we are in so 
many ways and to such an extent Thy debtors 
yet as soon as we employ the two pieces of money 
that we have : our soul and body, Thou art satis- 
fied and exactest no more. And yet even in that 
we afford no benefit to Thee but are serving our 
own interests. For to serve Thee is to reign, and 
if we gave Thee all that we have and consecrated 



214 Meditative Summaries 

ourselves absolutely to Thy service, and had 
never a thought but of Thee, we would be secur- 
ing the greatest possible advantage for ourselves. 

Woe to those whose blindness prevents them 
from seeing these marvels! Illumine my dark- 
ness, O God of Light! that I may know the mag- 
nitude of Thy mercies and the multitudinous evi- 
dences of Thy love, and after having seen that 
Light, let me esteem and appreciate it at its 
proper value, as far as the darkness of this life 
may permit. May the vision of these things be 
ever present to me, in order that my soul, amazed 
and enraptured by so much benignity and by so 
many benefits, may be inflamed with the fire of 
Thy love and devote and consecrate itself entirely 
to Thee. May all my thoughts, may all the 
powers of my being, may all my preoccupations 
and all the actions of my life be for Thy glory. 
May all the strength of my body and soul be 
spent in Thy service so that I, even I, may offer 
something to Thy love and be found not alto- 
gether ungrateful in Thy divine presence. 

"Bless the Lord, O my soul, and let all that is 
within me bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, 
O my soul, and never forget all that He hath 
done for thee. He forgiveth all thy iniquities; 
healeth all thy diseases; redeemeth thy life from 
destruction; crowneth thee with mercy and com- 



The Mercy of God 215 

passion; and satisfieth thy desires with good 
things. Thy youth shall be renewed like the 
eagles." (Ps. cii.) 

And do ye also O Angels, Archangels, Princi- 
palities, Virtues, Dominations, Thrones, Cheru- 
bim and Seraphim bless the Lord! Bless Him, 
unite your praise and exalt Him, because He has 
exercised His mercy towards us. May the 
heavens and the earth and the sea and all that is 
in them, praise and exalt forever the greatness 
of His name. To Him be honor and praise and 
thanksgiving from every generation, for ever 
and ever. Amen. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Justice of God. 

< < \V 7 HO knoweth the power of Thy wrath ? 
** What terror will measure Thy ven- 
geance ?" (Ps. lxxxix.) Who can properly ap- 
preciate the magnitude and the multitude of the 
punishments Thou hast prepared for sinners to 
be meted out to them by Thine omnipotence in 
due time? As Thy mercy is infinite so is Thy 
justice. It shows itself in numberless ways 
against sinners, not only in the future but in the 
present life; and although now mercy is chiefly 
exercised, nevertheless justice is at times exacted, 
so that men may learn to fear Thee. If sweet- 
ness does not avail to touch their hearts, the 
severity of Thy judgments may strike them with 
alarm. 

Thou didst manifest Thy justice and Thine 
anger against sin when for a single transgression 
Thou didst precipitate myriads of angels into hell 
though they were incomparably superior to men, 
and didst condemn them to eternal torment with- 
out any hope of pardon. Nor was Thy justice 
stayed either by the vast number of those who 
were punished, or by the excellence and beauty of 
216 



The Justice of God 217 

their nature, or by their marvellous intelligence 
endowed though it was with such clear and pene- 
trating knowledge. Thou didst not take into 
account the praise and benediction and gratitude 
and honor and glory that Thou wouidst have re- 
ceived from them for all eternity if Thou hadst 
pardoned their sin. Notwithstanding the loss of 
this masterpiece of Thy hands and the glory 
it would have procured for Thee hadst Thou for- 
given it, Thou didst prefer to suffer such a loss 
rather than pardon that single sin. 

Thou didst again display Thy justice and Thy 
wrath against sin in the punishment of our first 
parents, not only by depriving the whole human 
race of its original justice and the happiness of 
the state in which Thou didst create it, but by 
condemning it to innumerable miseries and to 
death itself. Thy wisdom foresaw that in con- 
sequence of this punishment an infinite multitude 
of men would be lost and that scarcely one out of 
a hundred would be saved, and yet on account 
of this first sin of our parents, Thou didst permit 
all that to fall on their posterity. Who is not 
startled when standing before this abyss of Thy 
judgments? Verily Thou art the great and 
terrible God, infinitely exalted and superexalted 
above all creatures, all-sufficing of Thyself for 
all praise and glory and happiness, and needing 



218 Meditative Summaries 

neither our service nor our praise, nor the service 
of the angels, but requiring only one thing: 
obedience to Thy will. 

Thou didst also show Thine anger against 
sinners when in punishment of a deluge of sin, 
Thou didst send the deluge of the waters which 
destroyed the whole human race with the excep- 
tion of eight who were to repeople the world. 
Thus didst Thou purify the earth which had been 
made foul with crime. Thy wrath again shone 
forth when a rain of fire and brimstone poured 
down from the heavens and utterly destroyed 
Sodom and the adjoining cities with all who 
dwelt therein, thus giving even in this life an 
image of the eternal fire prepared for sinners 
after death. 

Four hundred years afterwards, Thy wrath 
was exercised against the Egyptians who were 
oppressing Thy people by a cruel and unjust 
slavery. When both prince and people persisted 
in their obstinancy in spite of the mysterious and 
terrible plagues with which they were stricken, 
Thou didst make the waters of the Red Sea to 
engulf them. 

Thou didst not even spare Thy people whom 
Thou hadst chosen from all the nations of the 
world. In pursuance of Thy mandate, the earth 
opened under the feet of those who rebelled, fire 



The Justice of God 219 

falling from heaven consumed them, and the 
sword exterminated them. For their sin of 
murmuring they were condemned to wander for 
forty years in the barren sands and frightful soli- 
tudes of the desert; and finally during the time 
of the Judges, Thou didst permit them on account 
of their sins to be six times vanquished by their 
enemies, dragged into slavery and subjected to 
every kind of misfortune. 

Finally to punish its sins Thou hast often chas- 
tised the human race by pestilence, famine, war, 
tempests, floods and earthquakes. For as there 
is no place where sin is not committed, it is just 
that in all places sinners should be scourged by 
suffering in order that smitten by Thy hand they 
may return to the ways of wisdom and fulfil their 
duty to Thee. 

Thou punishest sin not only by exterior calami- 
ties, but still more by those which are interior and 
spiritual, as when Thou withdrawest from sin- 
ners Thy light and the protection of Thy grace, 
and permittest them to be driven by the demon 
into all kinds of wickedness. That is one of the 
most dreadful chastisements because it is next 
to eternal damnation. Thus for many thousands 
of years Thou didst permit the Gentiles, that is 
to say, almost the whole world, to enter upon the 
paths of iniquity, and didst allow the devil as the 



220 Meditative Summaries 

prince and god of this world to occupy Thy king- 
dom, and to be honored and adored by men as a 
veritable deity. In the same way Thou didst cast 
away Thy people on account of their crimes. 
Because they rejected the love of truth and put 
Truth itself to death Thou didst reject them by 
the withdrawal of Thy grace, and didst permit 
the demons to hold them enthralled in the slavery 
of intellectual blindness and error. Thus also 
because of their crimes and chiefly because of 
their heresies Thou didst abandon several Chris- 
tian realms and didst deliver them over to in- 
fidels or devils. 

Such are the judgments of Thy justice; such 
are the wages meted out to the wicked for their 
desertion of God. Those who abandon Thee and 
Thy doctrine are abandoned by Thee, and de- 
livered over to the deceits of the devil so that they 
mistake light for darkness and darkness for light, 
rejecting good as if it were evil and embracing 
the greatest evil as if it were the greatest good. 
Yet although this is the most awful punishment 
that can be inflicted in the present life, neverthe- 
less as it is not visible and not felt, no attention 
is paid to it, and instead of being regarded as a 
chastisement, it is esteemed as a benefit. But 
that is only a proof of the extremity of the mis- 
fortune. 



The Justice of God 221 

It is by these and other punishments that Thou 
afflictest sinners in this life and showest Thy 
wrath and Thy justice. But who can explain the 
sufferings, the afflictions, and the miseries that 
Thou hast reserved for sinners in the life to 
come, when Thou loosenest the reins of Thine 
anger, and no longer restrainest it by Thy mercy. 
There are they imprisoned in the deepest dun- 
geon where everything inspires horror; there 
they are plunged in a pool of fire and brimstone ; 
there the heaped up bodies will burn as dry wood 
in the midst of the sulphurous lake ; there, will be 
weeping and gnashing of teeth because of the 
fierceness of the suffering inflicted and the in- 
ability to support it; there under the form of 
frightful monsters, the demons enwrapped in a 
body of fire will exercise their cruelty on the un- 
fortunate damned; there will be felt in the body 
the extremest pain, and in all the senses extrem- 
est agony ; there the soul will be overwhelmed by 
incomprehensible sadness and incomprehensible 
despair, when it considers the infinite loss that it 
has suffered, the awfulness of its misfortunes, 
and above all the eternity during which all these 
losses and all these woes will be suffered without 
the shadow of any alleviation or appeasement of 
pain. O Eternity ! Infinite good for the blessed ; 
infinite evil for the reprobate! What a dreadful 



222 Meditative Summaries 

excess of pain, what horrible and intolerable tor- 
ture it would be to burn in a blazing furnace 
even for a day. What would it be for a year or 
a hundred years ; or a thousand years ; or a hun- 
dred thousand years ! What horror would seize 
our soul if we were condemned to burn for a 
hundred thousand years ! But if it is for all etern- 
ity, the punishment becomes infinitely greater 
and infinitely worse and engenders in the soul an 
agony incomparably more appalling. What then 
must that suffering be in itself which is incom- 
parably greater than a hundred thousand years in 
the torture of fire? 

Who can meditate on these sufferings without 
a shudder? To avoid them and to reach a place 
where they are no longer possible who would not 
despise from the depths of his soul the riches, 
pleasures and honors of this world ? Who would 
not enter upon the narrow path of salvation? 
Who would not consider it as the uttermost limit 
of madness, to expose himself for earthly and 
passing things to the danger of measureless and 
everlasting woe? 

I beg Thee, O Lord, by Thine infinite goodness 
and mercy, by the merits and mysteries of Thy 
Sacred Humanity to preserve me from such mad- 
ness. Illumine my mind with Thy light and the 
salutary wisdom of the elect, that by its fire, T 



The Justice of God 223 

may know more clearly the grievousness of sin 
which deserves such frightful punishments. 
Make me often consider, O my God, with all the 
strength of mind the misfortune of the lost; let 
me thoroughly understand for the sake of my 
salvation what a boundless ocean of malice there 
is in each deadly sin, that overwhelms both soul 
and body in such an ocean of misery ; and finally, 
let me endeavor with all possible care to avoid it, 
and to strive to please Thee. It is thus that* I 
shall flee from the greatest evil and labor effica 
ciously for the greatest good. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

God Our Last End. 

i < f~\ YE sons of men, how long will you be dull 
^^ of heart ? Why do you love vanity and 
seek after lying?" (Ps. iv.) The honors, riches 
and pleasures you seek so ardently are all vanity. 
Yet to obtain them you employ all the resources 
of your soul by which you could have attained 
solid and everlasting happiness. 

"Vanity of vanities, and all is vanity," says 
Ecclesiastes, and he had tried everything and in 
the light of the highest intelligence had contem- 
plated everything. Rightly he calls them vanity 
because they are of no avail for the end we have 
been appointed to reach, and they are often an 
obstacle. They are lies for they promise happi- 
ness and bring only misery. Those who seek 
such things are truly described as the sons of 
men for their minds are blinded, their cupidity 
is senseless and their labor useless and pernicious. 
Not for such things have we been created and 
placed in the world; not in them is good or rest 
to be found. They are earthly and fleeting and 
can neither perfect nor satisfy the soul whose 
nature is heavenly and eternal, whose capacity is 
224 



God Our Last End 225 

boundless and whose dignity is next to that of 
the angels. 

What then is our real good? Listen to the 
Royal Prophet who asks : "Who showeth us good 
things ? The light of Thy countenance, O Lord, 
is signed upon us. Thou hast given gladness in 
our heart." (Ps. iv.) The light of faith can 
show us this good and the way to reach it, and 
the knowledge of it fills the heart with incredible 
joy. For what is more desirable than to know 
our sovereign good and our last end, and to be 
surely treading the pathway that conducts us to 
eternal life. Without that knowledge all other 
knowledge is useless and deserves not the name 
of wisdom. 

The ancient philosophers lacked that knowl- 
edge and hence they were dissipated in their 
thoughts and drew no profit from their labors and 
researches. "For who knoweth the thoughts of 
God if it be not the Spirit of God, for the Spirit 
searcheth all things, yea, the deep things of God 
(I Cor. ii) ? By the Spirit has this hidden coun- 
sel of God been revealed to us. "May the heavens 
and the earth and the sea and all they contain, 
bless Thee, O my God! may they praise and 
exalt Thee for ever and ever." (Dan. iii.) For 
before all ages we were Thy care, and in the first 
counsel of Thy Trinity Thou didst form in our 



226 Meditative Summaries 

regard a design of infinite benignity. It was to 
make us sharers in Thy divinity and in all Thy 
possessions and in all Thy joy. Who would not 
be ravished with astonishment in contemplating 
such benignity and sweetness ? Who would have 
ever been able to hope for or divine it ? But such 
was the pleasure of Thine infinite goodness whose 
nature is to pour itself out and communicate it- 
self in ineffable ways. 

Alone in Thine eternity Thou wert in the en- 
joyment of Thine own goodness, and lacking 
nothing, for Thou art the infinite good and most 
sufficient for all happiness. The delight of the 
sweetness of association and friendship was not 
wanting. Thou didst find it in the Trinity of 
Persons ; for between the Father and the Son and 
the Holy Spirit there exists a sovereign society, 
a sovereign love, a sovereign communication of 
all good, of all joys, of all thoughts. Thou didst 
not therefore need the society of creatures. That 
could not be of advantage to Thee. Yet never- 
theless yielding to the inclination of Thy good- 
ness, Thou didst wish to create us and to elevate 
us to the participation of Thy possessions and of 
Thine infinite felicity. 

Between Thee and us there is an infinite dis- 
tance not of place but of nature. Being infinitely 
exalted above all creatures, Thou rulest them 



God Our Last End 227 

from an infinite height. Between us and Thee 
are the infinite degrees of rational nature which 
Thou in Thine infinite wisdom and power dost 
keep as Thou hast disposed them. Yet neverthe- 
less the power of Thy goodness is so great, that 
Thou canst elevate our soul above all created 
beings and, above all that may be created, in a 
most wonderful manner without assistance unite 
us to Thee by vision, by love and by beatitude. 

O admirable, happy and glorious union in 
which, O my God, are found at the same time our 
greatest good and Thy greatest glory! For by 
it we are made sharers in the divine goodness 
and the divine joy; and by it Thy Divinity shines 
in greatest splendor outside of Itself in the mirror 
of the created spirit, as within, It shines in the 
contemplation of Itself. In other created things, 
as in the structure of this universe and the differ- 
ent degrees of being, there are without doubt 
certain feeble rays of Thy Divinity, by the help of 
which we somewhat surmise Thy power, Thy wis- 
dom, Thy goodness ; but in our soul thus elevated 
and united to Thee the whole plenitude of Thy 
Divinity glows in Its splendor, and in It Thy 
beauty is reflected. And although It is one, It is 
nevertheless multiplied in such a marvellous man- 
ner that there would seem to be as many divini- 
ties as there are blessed spirits. 



228 Meditative Summaries 

That union of our soul with God is made the 
supreme aim of our desires. By it all good flows 
to us : power, because we shall be kings and sons 
of God ; wisdom, for we shall possess and contem- 
plate the very source of wisdom; holiness, for 
that burning love with which we shall be inflamed 
is supreme holiness and the perfection of every 
virtue; riches, because the kingdom of heaven 
and all its wealth belongs to us; honors, because 
we shall be received and honored as sons of God ; 
beauty, because our body shall shine as the sun 
and our soul like the Divinity; joys and delights, 
for we "shall be inebriated with the plenty of Thy 
house and shall drink of the torrent of Thy pleas- 
ure" (Ps. xxxv ) ; peace and security, for nothing 
without or within can ever trouble or sadden or 
disturb us; and what is greatest of all, there is 
the absolute certainty that this union with God 
will be eternal. 

Therefore let this union in which are found 
our greatest good, and God's greatest glory be 
ever nearest to our heart. Let us long for it and 
let us place it above all created things. Let the 
possessions of this life, no matter how great they 
may appear, become vile in comparison with it, 
and let all else without exception be reputed as 
nothing. Let all our thoughts, our cares, our 
labors tend to that divine union and let our soul 
never know rest except in it. 



God Our Last End 229 

But as so great a good is far beyond our 
strength, we have recourse to Thee, O most be- 
nignant God! It is solely by Thine infinite 
bounty that from all eternity Thou hast destined 
us to that sublime state. To conduct us thither 
and to put us in possession of it, Thou hast 
created the world, assumed our flesh, died on the 
cross, and given us other innumerable testimonies 
of Thy love. Continue Thy benignity towards 
us; interrupt it not, nor diminish it because of 
our ingratitude, our negligences, and the other 
blots that are the sad consequences of our 
frailty. Augment it rather, being mindful of 
Thine eternal purpose and of all the mercies Thou 
hast heaped upon us to this day. Illumine our 
souls with the light of Thy Holy Spirit; let it 
make us know the vanities and perils of this 
world, by the deceits of which so many perish, 
and let it reveal to us the excellence and the holi- 
ness of the eternal good that Thou hast prepared 
for us in Thee. Keep all this ever before our 
eyes and let it exercise on our souls a profound 
impression which will urge us in spite of all 
transitory things to the love and the conquest of 
all that is eternal. Let our desires, and our long- 
ing never cease ; let our efforts ever increase until 
the last moment of our life; and then by Thy 
grace, make us be found worthy of Thy kingdom 



230 Meditative Summaries 

and of the eternal rest in which all the saints, 
united with Thee who art their last end and sov- 
ereign good, will find by the vision and by love, 
unutterable delights and the supreme accomplish- 
ment of all their desires. 

FINIS. 
















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